EP.259 - ERIC IDLE

Hello, Adam Buxton here with news of some live shows, details of which you'll find on my website adam-buxton.co.uk.

On the 10th of October, I'll be on stage at the Wimbledon Theatre with Samira Ahmed, talking about my book I Love You Bai, showing clips and signing things afterwards.

On the 13th and 14th of October, the Adam Buxton Band is playing two nights at the Norwich Arts Centre.

Expect songs from my new album Buckle Up, Great Bants, and afterwards, I'll sign things if you want.

And finally, on the 26th of October, I'll be appearing at the Royal Festival Hall as part of the London Literary Festival.

Expect humorous readings, videos, and music, followed by, yep, signing.

And then, I think that's it for live shows for the rest of this year.

Tickets and info at adam-buxton.co.uk.

I

added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin.

Now you have plugged that podcast out and started listening.

I took my microphone and found some human folk.

Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke.

My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man.

I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

Hey,

how are you doing, podcasts?

It's Adam Buxton here.

I'm joining you from a Norfolk farm track in the second half of September 2025.

I'm here with my best dog friend Rosie.

She joined me very willingly for a walk today which is out of recent character but I'm very glad to have her along.

She was even scraping at the door with eagerness.

Sure she's walking somewhat gingerly now but well

you know she's a ginger walker these days.

She's a mature dog, 12.

So everything's a little bit more cautious for us all, I suppose, right, Rosie?

Leave me out of the age shaming and just get on with your waffles, I would.

Right, hope.

It's really a very beautiful evening out here in Norfolk.

It's a little windy and it's cool, but the light is very beautiful.

The fields are very green

and it's lovely and quiet.

How are you doing, though, podcats?

Thanks for joining me again.

Hope you'll enjoy this one.

Let me tell you about podcast number 259.

This features a rambling conversation with actor, comedian, musician and writer Eric Idle.

By the way before I go any further Eric is as I speak on tour in the UK with a show filled with anecdotes and music from across his career.

He's in Edinburgh on Monday the 22nd of September, Bournemouth on Wednesday the 24th and he wraps up at the Royal Albert Hall in London next weekend on Saturday the 27th.

The tour is called Always Look on the Bright Side of Life with Eric Idle.

There's a link in the description for tickets.

Now this is going to be another slightly longer intro today.

If you'd like to skip the rest of this and get straight to the conversation with Eric, just skip ahead from this point.

Eight minutes and you will find us waffling.

For the remainers, here's some idle facts for you.

Idle facts.

Eric Idle was born in South Shields, County Durham, in 1943.

His mother was a nurse, and his father served in the RAF during World War II, but he died as he was traveling home at the end of the war.

Struggling with depression in the years following her husband's death, Eric's mother made the decision to send her son to a boarding school known by the inmates as the Ofnee or the Orphanage because it was a charitable foundation for children whose dads had been killed in the war.

The school where Eric remained until he was 19 was harsh, bullying and corporal punishment were routine and despite developing an anti-authoritarian disruptive streak, Eric coped by working hard and earned himself a place to study English at Cambridge University where Eric joined the Footlights sketch troop, like last week's guest, Emma Siddy.

Although it should be noted that if Emma had been at Cambridge in the mid-60s as a woman,

she wouldn't have been allowed to join the Footlights.

Until, that is,

Eric became the first president of the club to allow women to join.

Nevertheless, I hereby promise that there will be no more members of the Footlights sketch troupe on the podcast this year.

However, if it hadn't been for the Footlights, Eric may never have met his future fellow Pythons, John Clees and Graham Chapman.

It was while working on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a 1967 TV comedy show ostensibly aimed at kids, that Eric met the other future Pythons, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam.

Gilliam provided animations for the show.

Music was supplied by the Bonzo Dog Doodar Band, whose members included comedian and musician Neil Innes, and singer-songwriter, poet, celebrated eccentric, and MC on Mike Oldfield's tubular bells, Vivian Stanshall.

Monty Python's Flying Circus debuted on BBC One in 1969, with 45 episodes airing over four series until 1974.

Plus two episodes for German TV.

And of course, there were the films, The Holy Grail in 1975, The Life of Brian in 1979, and The Meaning of Life in 1983.

Music always played an important part in Python TV shows and films, and many of the songs were composed by Bonzo Dogg's Neil Innes.

But it was one of Eric's many brilliant compositions for the Pythons that produced an all-time great cinematic moment, as well as providing the soundtrack to countless funerals over the years.

Outside of Monty Python, Eric made two series of his sketch show Rutland Weekend Television between 1975 and 1976.

In one sketch, Eric, a passionate rock and roll fan since boyhood, played a version of The Beatles' George Harrison to Neil Innes' John Lennon in his parody band The Ruttles, a spoof that was later expanded into the 1978 TV mockumentary All You Need Is Cash, and then The Ruttles 2 Can't Buy Me Lunch in 2000.

The Ruttles even toured and released two albums of music, written primarily by Neil Innes.

Side note, Innes' 1973 song, How Sweet to Be an Idiot, bore a remarkable similarity to a song that was a huge early Britpop hit in 1994.

Can you guess which one?

How sweet

to be an idiot.

As harmless

as a clown.

When the similarity between How Sweet to Be an Idiot and the opening line of Whatever by Oasis was pointed out, Noel Gallagher, a Ruttles fan, held up his hands and settled out of court, handing over a quarter of the royalties from whatever to Innes and his publishers.

Back in the mid-70s, Eric Idle had struck up a friendship with real Beatle George Harrison, who appeared in the 1975 Rutland Weekend television Christmas special, singing what starts out as Harrison's 1970 mega smash, My Sweet Lord, but which suddenly becomes the Pirate Song, a rock and roll sea shanty written with Eric Idol, their only musical collaboration.

Although Eric can be heard screeching in the voice used by characters the Pythons referred to as the Pepper Pots on George Harrison's 1976 single This Song.

Post-Flying Circus, Eric Idle hosted Saturday Night Live four times and went on to act in films that included National Lampoon's European Vacation in 1985, Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen in 1988, Nuns on the Run in 1990, Casper in 1995,

and way back in 1983, the ill-fated pirate comedy Yellowbeard, written by and starring Monty Python's Graham Chapman, alongside Peter Cook, Madeleine Kahn, and Marty Feldman with appearances from John Cleese, Cheechen Chong, Michael Horden, James Mason, Spike Milligan and Eric's friend David Bowie, uncredited as the shark.

I've put various clips illustrating a lot of this stuff on the blog post for today's episode.

You'll find a link to my blog, adam-boxton.co.uk, in the description of the podcast.

More recently, Eric found himself with a huge international hit on his hands in the form of Spam-Alot, his musical theatre adaptation of the Holy Grail, which has continued to tour around the world on and off since its Broadway debut in 2005.

My conversation with Eric was recorded face-to-face in London back in June of this year, 2025.

And as well as talking about Eric's early years in the footlights and on Do Not Adjust Your Set, we talked about the special relationship between comedians and musicians, as well as Eric's musical friendships with David Bowie, George Harrison, and Viv Stanchell.

Since 1994, Eric has been based in Los Angeles, but he also spends a lot of time in the house he built in southern France.

And by coincidence, there happened to be a painting of a Provençal field filled with poppies hanging in the room where we were recording in London.

And as you will hear, it caught Eric's eye, as did various musical instruments in the room.

One of these was a device called a cue chord,

sometimes likened to a digital auto harp.

It's got a pear-shaped body and a neck containing rows of cord buttons.

I wrongly identified it to Eric as an Omnicord and also wrongly claimed that they were originally manufactured by Yamaha.

In fact, Suzuki made the Omnicord and the next version, the Q chord, which is the one you'll hear Eric inspecting.

I apologise to you, podcats,

and to fact checking center for any fact pain caused.

Oh, and as I never quite finished telling Eric, the song that Brian Eno used an Omnicord on was Deep Blue Day from Apollo.

You know, the one that plays in train spotting when Renton dives down the toilet to retrieve his bum drugs.

But we began by talking about whether Eric misses life in the UK, specifically London.

Back at the end, for a public service announcement and a bit of waffle, but right now, with Eric Idol, here we we go.

Let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat.

Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat.

La

la

Would you ever come back to London, do you think?

Would you ever live there again?

I don't like the weather.

Yes.

I love the country, I like the people,

so I wouldn't necessarily stay in America, but I like Europe, but unfortunately, the buggers stopped me going there.

You know, I hate them.

Because I had a house in France.

Who stopped you going there?

Fucking government.

Which government?

Brexit.

Oh, right.

Three fucking months.

How does that work?

What's the technical works that work?

They just fucking stop you.

I didn't even have a vote.

But if you've got a house there,

don't you have the right to go back to that house?

No.

Because you left the union, so you can't go anywhere in Europe.

Anywhere after three months.

Uh-huh.

Don't even get me started on...

On Brexit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, but I, you know, England's always been a great place.

I mean, London's always been a great place, too.

An auto harp, a modern auto harp.

Yeah, Omnicord.

An omnichord.

Have you played with one of those?

No.

Oh, they're pretty great.

Yeah?

Have a go.

This is called a Q chord, but originally they were, I think they were made by Yamaha or someone like that.

So you've got the...

Oh, wow.

You stuck.

Any of them.

Alright, oh great.

I love auto if you want.

And then you can strum

threes in the same chord.

Three, but you've got different voices.

I've got my glasses on, so where do you change the key?

So all of these here.

You can take it down to a minor or a seven or pretty much anything you want.

You can bend up.

Oh, lovely.

Oh, that's sweet.

Oh, yeah.

You know, we have a ding-dong every week.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But

I like guitar, but I mean, I love those sort of things.

Yeah, Brian Eno used one

on

Wald.

Do you like Brian Eno's stuff?

I don't really know Brian Eno's stuff.

I met him a couple of times, but I don't.

I'm not.

I only know he's like, you know, from the

old days.

Roxy.

Yeah, yeah.

And then a bit through Bowie.

He was at Bowie's wedding.

They all were.

It was Eno, Ono, Bono.

They were all there.

Anybody called O.

But, you know, so I don't actually know his music.

No, I don't.

But I know he played a big influence with David.

He was very fond of him.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Huge influence.

Okay.

Where's that?

With the poppies.

Is that France?

That is France.

Yeah.

Whereabouts?

That is near Uzes.

Uzes?

Yeah.

I know Uzes.

Do you?

Yes.

Is it by Tony Daniels?

Yes, it is.

Yeah.

Oh, fuck off.

Yeah.

He's a friend of mine.

Is he really?

He was.

he's dead now.

I'll recognise the poppies and the country.

Yeah.

Yeah I've stayed with him in Uzets.

No way.

Yes of course.

Near Nimes.

That's why I knew Nimes right yeah.

No no.

His sister did up my house.

When I bought a house in 71 she made it into a house and that's where I met him 72,

71.

And we went off there and went to his gallery, you know, his launches and yeah, he met Jerry Darrell there and people like that all buying and Stephen Spender.

But he was wonderful, Tony.

Did you ever meet him?

I never met him he's a friend of my my uh wife's family fabulous you're very funny lovely and I know his niece still uh but hey well bravo hey how how what are the odds what a mad coincidence we've got so many of his paintings I love you yes no he's he's good isn't he he's nice and he was a lovely net a lovely man right and he went about only four or five years ago yeah he was he was he was good I knew him very very well it was lovely we go and stay with him yeah and we go to his you know Vernesage the gallery opening.

Whereabouts in France are you?

We're further over to in the Var.

Okay.

But that's beautiful, that area around Nîmes and Uzes, and that got, you know, the beautiful bridge, what's it called?

The Pont du Garde.

The Pont du Gaarde.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so would you just stay in France for like forever if I could, but no, no, till the winter.

I spend a lot of time there.

I've written a book about it.

It's coming out next year.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

About the whole process of having family and building

doing and living and who came to visit and Tony's in the book.

Doing your sort of Peter Mail bit.

Much more interesting and much before Peter Mail.

Yeah.

You know, Peter Mail didn't get there till the 80s or 90s.

I mean I've been five years on it.

I've been writing a book about where I'll hide away.

Yeah.

Because I'm getting too old to hide.

So

and

it's been amazing.

It was always my retreat.

But it burned at one point, right?

Oh yeah, we had a forest fire.

Yeah.

Yeah, a couple of times.

But we were lucky because we were building, so we cleared the area around the house.

It was only a tiny little house.

We didn't have electricity for eight years.

You know, we had no road, no water.

We had to find water.

We did the whole stage of life.

Yeah, the Jean de Florette years.

Absolutely, just like that.

And people say, oh, no, you can't pass here.

Oh, no, no.

So it was odd.

Wow.

Yeah, no.

And so what would you do for like electricity and

in the summer you have little oil lamps?

yeah and then you have gas those butane big blue gas pots that will give you hot water and they give you a fridge and cooking gas you know so you had everything you know and then you had batteries for music and a guitar obviously yeah oh my god it's so romantic it was very romantic it was and you know and now we still have it but it's it's i said it's gone from a shack to a shacko

and it's lovely and every time we had a bit of money we build a bit more or do a bit more of this and expand a little.

Yeah.

It's wonderful.

It's my I'm going on Tuesday.

It makes me really happy.

Yeah.

You got your helipad there now?

Oh, yeah, fine.

No, no, no, no, it's completely in the forest.

It's in the wood.

You know, it's and we have 300 olive trees, so we have our own olive oil.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so it's really nice.

Idle oil.

I call it, I've got it's it's idle oil, but I call it ex-virgin olive oil.

So it's quite nice.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's very good olive oil from that part of the world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's beautiful.

It really is beautiful.

When was that that you came to be out there in the first place?

Was that mid-70s?

That was 71.

Okay.

And we were doing Python and we'd been doing Python and Python and T V and then film and this and we hadn't had a holiday.

Yeah.

And we were moaning.

So we got

very fortunate and went to stay in this tiny little cabin on there.

It was beautiful.

And people, you know, were there singing and playing.

It was a nice, really

lovely part of the world.

Yeah.

And can you speak French?

Yeah.

I learned it.

Yeah.

I went to the City Institute and did that.

Yeah.

I can speak very badly.

And so I thought what's quite wonderful is I have a Provençal accent.

So I'm in Paris.

It's as weird as somebody speaking in a Yorkshire accent in French, you know.

It's a very strange accent for me.

Can you give me an example of a Provençal accent?

Wow, what kind of words are you?

Wow, wow.

But also, I'm very good at body language.

So you do the full French.

It's nice and they're lovely.

They've been very nice to me.

They didn't find out what I did for a long time.

It's nice.

I read in your book you talking about sitting there under the stars and learning about

astronomy.

Astronomy, yeah.

Not astrology.

Not astrology.

I thought Brian Cox would kill you.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, I did.

I had a little bit of a retirement.

It was lovely.

I took all books on astrology and biology and I learned about these things.

I thought, I don't know anything about all this shit.

So I took these books and sitting under the Milky Way and playing guitar is really nice, you know.

It just moves gently across and it's lovely.

Yeah.

And then sometimes we'll have six or seven people all playing guitar and doing Beatles songs and ding-dongs.

It's nice.

Ding-dong, that's your phrase for a kind of musical get-together.

Yeah, we have a ding-dong every week in California.

Oh, wow.

That's good for the soul, a bit of music therapy.

Saving, saving grace.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So who's in your Provençal ding-dongs then?

Well, the business.

In the ding-dong.

I don't think you know the people in.

Apart from Brian Cox, he came and stayed a couple of times and bought a house in the village nearby.

Okay.

And he plays keyboard.

And his son, George, is a beautiful guitarist, he's 16.

That's what I always forget with Brian Cox, he was in a band.

Things can only get better.

Things can only get better.

Yeah, you're the

poptomist guys.

Always look on the bright side and things can be better.

I know, I said, because he always complains about my lyrics of the Galaxy song.

And I said, well, at least they're more accurate than things can only get better.

And he claimed we did a gig in Cambridge on Monday for Pembroke for the master.

And he said, I made his career.

yeah

what do you mean he said and he said things can be played things can only get better and claimed to have you know Lord Smith Chris

claimed to have started his career right yes used by Tony Blair wasn't it so exactly to launch new labor that's right I think that's when I left the country not it's a coincidence yes and you had like I'm a Bowie obsessive so I'm in awe of the fact that you were hanging out with him.

Did he ever make it out to France?

Oh yes, he came and stayed.

Oh really?

Yeah.

I've got pictures of him Bowie at breakfast.

Bowie at breakfast.

I took him, yeah.

And I took him into the village and it was really, you know, people didn't bother anybody.

It was nice for people when they came to stay.

They weren't bothered.

It was suddenly, I remember with Robin Williams took him early on and he just, it was the height of Mork and Mindy.

And he couldn't believe it.

Nobody recognised him on the dance floor.

He went, I'm Mork, I'm Mork.

And carried on dancing.

It's very nice for people to get their anonymity back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They can be human beings again.

It's nice.

So Berry came, you know, we had a lot of time down in Provence, and

you know, we don't go often go to opening of his film.

I went to see him do the

what was it, that one blonde, the blonde tour,

the serious moonlight.

Oh, yeah, the Let's Dance.

Yeah, at Frazier's.

We went there to see that.

It was fantastic.

Yeah.

Was that around the time that he came to stay with you then?

Yeah, I was about 83, I think.

Yeah.

I met him a little earlier.

Oh, he came to our wedding, 81.

He came.

I think I must have met him in LA about 79 because he loved comedians.

Right.

So Bob Cat Goldthwaite introduced me.

And then we were on holiday with Lord Michaels and people and we were on somewhere on an island and

he was such a great guy.

He's an intellectual.

I mean, he turned me on to recast Strauss, the Four Last Songs.

And then we go and stay with him in Switzerland.

And he was really in great company.

Yeah.

I was even his best man at his wedding.

Oh, yeah.

I've said the most awful things.

What did you say?

I'm not going to tell you.

I've had to ban it from my mind.

Sometimes I blush and go, you didn't really say that.

I think.

Please tell me you didn't say that.

Well, Yoko Ono was there, wasn't she?

Yoko was there.

Did you say something spicy about her?

No, I said something smoky about David and a lot of smoky things.

And then at the end of the thing, I look up and Yoko's standing on the table going like that.

Giving you the thumbs up.

Yeah, give him a thumbs up.

And I thought, of course.

You can't live with John Lennon and not have a sense of humour.

Right, yeah.

And a spicy one at that.

Yes.

Because I always wondered to take a little tangent into Ruttelworld.

I always wondered what she would have thought.

There's a character.

She loved it.

There's a character.

They loved the fact that she was Hitler's daughter.

Because she was treated that way by the press.

You know, she was treated as this horrible monster.

So to be portrayed as Hitler's daughter made them both roar with laughter.

They thought it was really funny.

And they were, yeah, yes, of course she must have a sense of humour.

You can't live with the Beatles or Liverpool people without having a sense of humour.

That's not a joke that people would do now, I don't think.

Or at least if they did, it would be so differently positioned and received.

Do you know what I mean?

Like in those days, though, were you angsty at all about doing a joke like that, having a character that was obviously, well, supposed to be Yoko and she's wearing a Nazi uniform?

Were you sort of thinking?

Well, they called her awful names, and you know, she was Japanese, and they, you know, they were quite vile to her.

So to be Edler's daughter, it's kind of like, you know,

you've got to take it further on to be funny.

Right.

Did you write the ruttles all on your own?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Well, I mean, Neil Inch wrote all the songs.

Yes.

Yeah.

So you weren't sort of sitting around consulting with people when you were writing jokes like that.

You weren't sort of going.

Do you think this is going to land right?

No,

I don't think so.

I mean,

the only censorship thing we never had was BBC and they really didn't bother us.

So it wasn't it like everybody said, oh, you can't say that, you can't say that.

We didn't live in those times.

We wouldn't have been able to do most of what we did.

Yeah.

I mean, you still can't sing a lot of my songs.

You can't sing I like Chinese, for example.

What are you you supposed to say?

I hate Chinese, you know, but

you know, we didn't have to deal with that.

No, you dealt with what you could get on air,

not what you were allowed to say privately or publicly.

Yes, the first time that things got controversial was Life of Brian, and then suddenly you were in the eye of the kind of mad storm around people willfully misinterpreting the.

Yeah, but there were arseholes, you know, what was her name?

Malcolm Mugridge.

Yeah, yeah.

And what was her name?

Miss Something of Light,

the woman.

Oh, there's Mary Whitehouse.

Mary Whitehouse.

Yeah.

And luckily, my mum looked like Mary Whitehouse.

So we brought her on stage on Michael Palin's birthday and said, he's his favourite person, Mary Whitehouse, for presenting him with the cake.

And in the Birmingham Mail, it says, Mary Whitehouse came on stage and gave him a cake.

I saw her in a ruttling weekend and I thought, oh, it's my mum.

But in those days, she was all over the place, you know.

And really, you know,

it was attacking them.

They're quite right to be upset.

Yeah, we were trying to offend them.

Okay.

And I hope we did.

Were you stressed by that?

It seems like that famous TV confrontation, which was John Cleese and Michael Palin defending themselves.

Michael Palin especially looked stressed.

Like he looked.

Yeah, he did look very upset.

Because we took it very seriously.

I mean, you know, when it started with me, unfortunately, we were in New York opening the Holy Grail.

And the journalist said to me, What's your next film going to be?

And I said, Jesus Christ Lusts for Glory.

Just as a

joke, yeah.

And then we went back and we said, Well, actually, you know, a religious is interesting.

And then, you know, we studied it a bit, and then we realised you can't actually make fun of Jesus because he's like, the things he's saying are kind of Buddhist and very nice, you know, look at forgiveness, look after each other, all of that.

So

the story is actually a tragedy of somebody who's mistaken for a Messiah.

And you can't get rid of them.

I mean,

that's the farce of it, that's the story, the plot.

He isn't pretending to be.

These people have decided he's the messiah, you know.

And that's a kind of comic tragedy.

Yeah, you know, he gets crucified for it, for God's sake.

You and I were both at boarding school when we were younger.

Right.

Although I think I had a better time at boarding school than you did.

Possibly.

Where were you?

I was at a place in Sussex that was kind of nice, and this was early 80s, late 70s, and it was co-ed.

You didn't have a uniform.

What age did you?

I was nine.

Oh, so quite young, huh?

Yeah, quite young.

Younger than I would have preferred.

I went at seven.

Why?

How did you end up?

Because you're a boy from a working-class family.

Well, my father was killed.

He was in the RAF, but he was killed hitchhiking home for Christmas.

And he died on Christmas Eve.

So this is at the end.

He's made it through the war.

He made it through the war.

And so my education was paid for by the RAF.

Okay.

And my mother had to work for a living and she was, you know, health physicist.

Odyssey actually started there.

And they paid, you know, they paid for my education.

And, you know, I think it was very weird because all of my school were all paid for by the RAF and so they didn't have any fathers.

Which you think about it, a whole society growing up don't have fathers.

It's very odd, isn't it?

So we were kind of unruly

and managed to find our own fun.

And it was it was good because eventually

you know, everybody left and you were 16, 17 and you're reading, you're you're educating yourself.

And I managed to get to Cambridge, which is kind of very unlikely.

Nobody went to university at my school.

They went to prison.

But it turned out to be very good

for me.

Was it a shock to go there initially, though?

Yeah,

huge shock.

I thought I was going home.

You know, what do you mean?

You're staying here.

It's like,

yes, and it was a junior school.

All right, seven.

And then 11, the boarding school was a bit rough because it had been an orphanage.

And now it's like a semi-orphanage.

So, you know, it was a bit rough.

And I think comedy was a help.

Rough in what way though?

Well physically, you know,

a little bullying and the prefects could beat you with slippers

and the masters could beat you with canes.

They had the privilege.

And, you know, so it was kind of tough.

Did you ever sort of enjoy it in a fairly straightforward way?

No, I mean, it was always, you know, what it is.

You have to go back.

Even if it's in your own holiday, you've got to go back.

But, you know, the wolves were good.

It was nice to find the wolves.

They were number one in Europe and the world.

And this is the football team.

The football team.

Yeah, that was good.

And, you know, you found your own things.

I mean, I got a guitar at 12.

And my grand gave me a typewriter, which is really interesting.

I don't know why she did that.

I became a writer.

and write stories and things.

And if you look back, there are lots of benefits from it.

I was thinking of writing a book, saying, Everything I know, I learned only at boarding school.

But they put you in the army once a week, and you had to go to camp and reel and march across Snowdodia.

So it was quite a tough life.

Yeah.

But not in a bad way.

It prepared you for filming Monty Python, really.

But do you, if you have any anxieties, do you draw a line between your experience at boarding school and some of those anxieties?

I know I do personally.

I think I used to have nightmares about it still

and then

you know I'm in California so I had a shrink for a while.

It's very useful and puts these things into perspective and now I think more positively about it because it taught me such a lot about life and then suddenly going to Cambridge and it's a beautiful place and you don't even have to go to lectures if you don't want to and I got into comedy and that was was just like a whole fabulous new,

I found my way.

That's what I did for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

What were you studying at Cambridge?

English.

Okay.

So you didn't have to go to lectures.

You just read the book.

Yeah.

It was a good thing to do because I could spend most of my time doing comedy.

We had our own club, the Footlights.

You know, with a bar and lunches.

And so you learned by doing.

And we put on little shows.

Who were your contemporaries there in the Footlights?

Well, I was auditioned in my first term at Pembroke by Tim Brooke Taylor and Bill Oddy.

Of the Goodies.

Two of the Goodies auditioned me and put me in the show.

And then the first script they gave me was written by John Cleese.

Okay.

Who wasn't a member, so he couldn't be in the show.

So my first public performance, he's there watching me do his show, one of his sketches.

It's very bizarre.

And then they said, oh, you've got to join the Footlights.

I said, what's that?

Because I never heard of it.

And you had to audition and join.

And it was fun.

That was really made it for me, the whole experience.

Yeah, what kind of characters were your favourites to play in those days?

I'm not entirely sure.

I mean, I was very lucky because at the end of my first year,

their show was so good with Billardi and Cleese and I think Chapman was in it, he came back in it.

It was so funny, they took it to London and it ran in the West End for seven months.

So I got a telegram saying, Come back to Cambridge, you're going to Edinburgh.

So I was in the Edinburgh Festival in 1963.

I'm 20.

I'm performing for the public.

I was on television.

And that's where I met Michael Palin and Terry Jones who were doing the Oxford Review.

Yeah.

What TV stuff were you doing then?

Well, I mean, there was like the festival special or something like that.

Okay.

Local Scottish television.

It wasn't like a big show.

But still, it's a big deal.

You know, going from nowhere to being on television.

Yeah.

And it was a great grounding.

It was a great learning process.

Do you remember any of the sort of things that you did learn at that point?

Like, what were the things that you picked up?

I think, most importantly, I did all the Bill Oddy roles, and Bill did all the songs.

So, I learned about funny songs.

Okay.

And I thanked him recently, and I said, you know, Bill, I think I learned how to do that from you by doing some of your very funny songs.

And he then went on to do, I'm sorry, I'll read that again.

He'd write a funny song every week.

And that's a separate skill that you wouldn't necessarily pick up.

And I loved doing those.

You were writing those on the guitar, were you?

Well, eventually I would.

Or I had a friend called John Cameron who played piano.

I think we did an early Beatle parody called I Want to Hold Your Handle.

And it was like the hallelujah cause.

And they took that one onto Broadway when they went off to Broadway, the rest of the bigger, yeah,

the earlier ones.

So that was an early Ruttles

attempt.

And what sort of songs would you write though?

Because I mean you weren't really doing too much kind of news satirey stuff.

No.

Well the satire was big because it was on television.

But I remember writing a song called I'm Too Old to Be a Popular Arstar.

And then I think I did a song we said farewell to Cambridge.

We're going down from Cambridge where the streets are paved with gold.

And it's in somebody's book.

They put it in as if it was a genuine song, but it was a parody song, you know.

We got more into songs when we did Do Not Adjust Your Set, because we had the Bonzos suddenly in our life, the Bonzo Dog Duda band.

So that's Neil Innes and was Viv Stanchell?

Viv Stanchaw, and there was lots of them.

Yeah.

And they were very art school.

They come out of art school.

And they were very situationist.

And it was interesting because it was more like attitude.

And I think it influenced our writing.

Because we tight little Oxford Cambridge sketches, you know, but they were...

And David Jason was in that show too.

Was he?

Yeah.

He played Captain Fantastic.

Right.

And I wrote that song.

He's a man, he's a super, superman.

Nobody can tame him.

He's a man, he's a supermarket man.

And this is what they name him.

Because

Captain, Captain Fantastic.

Captain, Captain Fantastic.

With your ball hats and your plastic Mac and your umbrella politics.

It was every week at 5.20

and we got an adult audience came in because we were funny.

You know,

we decided we wouldn't talk down to kids.

We would just be funny.

We'd be silly.

You couldn't be rude, but we wouldn't be condescending.

And it was fairly silly.

We did two seasons of that.

We won awards and things.

It was amazing.

Did Did you hang out with Viv Stanchell?

Yeah, Viv was extraordinary.

Yeah, he was a real genius.

I sat in for Neil once and he had the flu.

I pretended to play the piano on one of the songs.

Because they always wanted to be funny.

And they were always on the roads.

And that was their day off.

They come down to do the TV show.

But they had a rather tough life because they play all the northern clubs and things, you know.

How did they go down in those places?

I have no idea.

Because they were very in-your-face, situated.

I mean, their stuff is still really I think very fine.

Yeah.

Urban Spaceman is the one that most people seem.

Yeah.

Right.

I'm the urban spaceman baby, I've got speed.

I've got everything

I need.

I'm the urban spaceman baby.

I can fly.

I'm a super personic guy.

Was that the one produced by McCartney?

I think he

produced it.

And they're also in the magical mystery tour.

They're all in that film.

Okay.

Yeah.

He's a character, Viv Stanchall, that I, in my mind, I bracket him with someone like Peter Cook.

He wasn't as disciplined as Peter.

He was funny as hell.

But then he became a sort of alcoholic, sadly.

I think they went to America and it all fell apart.

They had a sort of disastrous tour of America.

And I think so they'd had a single and therefore they could sell it.

I think it was McCartney who produced it, didn't he?

I'm going to Google it.

I'm the Urban Spaceman, baby.

Yes, Paul McCartney produced I'm the Urban Spaceman,

but he did so under the pseudonym Apollo C.

Vermouth.

Apollo?

Apollo C.

Vermouth or Vermouth.

Oh, Vermouth.

Apparently.

Interesting.

Maybe he was in John Martini's stage.

Yeah,

according to AI overview.

But

when you say that Viv Stanchall was less disciplined than Peter Cook...

Well, Peter was brilliant.

He was a genius.

And he could improvise at Cambridge an entire camarea.

And that's not what Viv was.

Viv was a lead singer.

And he could do a brilliant Elvis and he could sing lead brilliantly, but it was more situationist

comedy.

He did song comedy.

And Peter was...

always you know the when i got to cambridge it was five years after cook and they were still doing peter cook Cook voices you know what the kind of EL Whistie voice could have been a minor but I never had the Latin you know they'd all do that sort of voice and the L that was El Whistie wasn't it yeah yeah no and he was always extraordinary he was very very funny and right to the end of his life he was funny as can be we went up the Nile with him and he was hilarious I did a movie with him in Mexico Yellowbeard and he was so much fun yeah it was fun and we'd sit in the pool right bouncing up and down he said i know the speed of light but what is the speed of darkness

which i asked brian cox it made him think for a while professor and he said it's the same

so i think it's a bit of a cheat don't you but he was remarkable really yeah did you ever watch peter cook and dudley moore get the horn I think when they're in a studio and Derek and Clive.

That was the Derek and Clive thing, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And never saw the film, but I always heard of tapes.

All right, okay.

Yeah, it's quite sort of, I think it was towards the end of their working relationship, rude, yeah, really rude.

They were stoned and pissed, and

it's quite uncomfortable, some of it, like the atmosphere between them because there was a sort of status imbalance at that point, it's a change, it had swapped over, yeah.

But then a lot of not only but also their series got wiped by the BBC, and some of their monologues were so funny, you know, and that was before Derek and Clive.

But I think, you know, it was odd for Peter to find himself that Dudley was a film star.

You know, he was himself, he was always, you know, he ran Private Eye and he opened an

establishment club.

And the first person he put on was Lenny Bruce.

Right.

You know, that was extraordinary.

Did you ever have status angst within the Pythons?

Status angst?

Yeah, I'm thinking about when you sort of paused around Ruttle's time when everyone else was off doing their own projects.

Like, well, there was Faulty Towers and then there was

Ripping Yarns.

Michael did ripping yarns with Terry from

it's very funny.

Yeah.

Tompkinson's school days is hilarious.

Right.

Tompkinson's school days.

Anyway, were you, did you sort of ever feel like, oh, what am I going to do?

Did you ever feel like a bit worried about keeping it?

You know, because I got Rutland pretty early.

Yeah.

I got Rutland Weekend Television.

But I rather stupidly went for the honesty of having no money.

We did it in the fourth floor studio at the BBC next to the weather forecast because it was about the tiniest TV station in England.

And in fact, the Conservatives had got rid of Rutland.

They'd taken it out of existence after a thousand years and made it part of Leicestershire.

You know, it seemed rather gross.

So that was the concept.

A fictitious television station allows you to parody everything.

Yeah.

And in my show, I do a few clips from Rutland, weekend television, because nobody's ever seen it.

Sometimes you can see it on YouTube, but you know, very, very little.

How is your show going to work, by the way?

This is the live show you're going to be doing later this year.

What's the general format?

Well, it's like a one-man musical.

Okay.

But it's got, you know, I've got songs and I've got clips and things that I've chosen that I love that people won't know.

They don't know them very well.

And there's a new eight-minute clip of the Ruttles done by Peter Jackson.

No, and

because I did a second one called that, the first one was called All You Need Is Cash.

And I did another one called Can't Buy Me Lunch and it was about the effect of the Ruttles on the world today.

And I interviewed all these famous people.

Salmon Rushdie's talking about the Ruttles and Bowie's talking about the Ruttles

and Tom Hanks is talking about the Ruttles.

Tom Hanks cries.

He did the fictitious crying when they broke up.

When did you film that stuff?

I did that one about 2001, okay.

And because Neil had made another album.

And so I thought, well, I'll I'll use those songs, but I'll have to come in from a different point of view, and I can't make a big film.

So I found some old footage.

We found some old original footage of Bill Murray the K

in a in a warehouse in New Jersey.

And so we put some of that in.

But it was mainly me going around interviewing people on the effects of the Ruttles and the world.

You know, and, you know, the cultural legacy.

Yeah, so you see Bonnie Rait saying, oh, they definitely changed the world.

And then these wonderful people, James Taylor oh yeah the Russells changed the world I mean it's really just lying again but it's quite fun yeah so we've got a new eight minute cut of that and then you know I sing songs I tell stories and I have a virtual band on a screen behind me oh cool yeah the connection between rock and roll and comedy yes I suppose in my mind the dawn of that whole association was Python and and all the stars you came up with of music we were the same generation.

Most of the groups came out of art school and they sort of made rock and roll interesting and

different

in England, in the UK.

And of course they're the same generation.

So when you meet up, you came from 1943, 1942.

So it was natural to be friends, easy.

you know and even in show business you know the comedians have always been close to the band and vice versa why is that do you think well because i think the comedians think they can play music and the band think they're funny.

But what happened in the...

This is my theory, is mock and roll.

I talk about it.

I said, because in the 50s, the comedians were on the stage and the band were firmly in the pit.

But once television arrived, the comedians plugged in, got electric, put on makeup, tight trousers and was chased around the world.

So I said, but Python is the first mock and roll group because

you know the Beatles ended up at the Hollywood Bowl and so did we.

We went on the road and we ended up at the Hollywood Bowl.

And the second mock and roll group is Saturday Night Live because they brought in,

my first show I did as host, Joe Cocker came on and Belushi parodied him face to face.

They both sang a song together, which is kind of remarkable.

So I think they were the second mock and roll group.

You know, now it's quite common for comedians to play stadiums, which is unheard of, really.

So

I think they're close.

Yeah.

And I said, as a thought experiment if you were to tell me who was the first person

who made you laugh and who were the first people who made you happy singing I'll tell you exactly where you come from and when you were born because I think that's our DNA those are the things that formed us we had Elvis and we had the goons

and then I think it changes as you get older and the different people can take over but those are the things that mean the most to you.

Elvis saved our lives in boarding school.

Yeah.

You know, so a viable thesis.

Absolutely.

I think mine might be Paul Hogan and the Thompson Twins.

That's sweet.

No, but I mean it's very interesting because I think it changes all the time.

Yeah, sure.

Were any of the other Pythons as excited as you were to meet rock stars and hang out with musicians?

I don't think so.

I mean I

I don't think any people went and hang out with John, you know, he's a bit formidable.

But I think because I played guitar,

I could hang out and play.

And you were into the stuff, right?

You were a music fan.

Yes, absolutely.

I think there were two.

I mean, everybody liked the Beatles, but not everybody could play along.

And, you know, I've sat and played with Keith and Ronnie Wood and Mick and all those people I played with.

You know, it's fun.

What would you sit around and play?

Like their songs?

Pretty much, I think so, yeah.

Or blues songs.

Would you sing as well?

Yeah, very much so.

Yeah, everybody sings.

And what kind of voice would you sing in, though?

Would you sing?

Well,

I don't know.

My voice, whatever that is.

Okay.

But not an imitation of, like, would you be doing Caroline?

Well, we do, we do Alvis songs, you know, we still do Alvis songs.

Yeah.

It's good fun to do that.

And we do Alva Everlies.

You know, it's the same influences, you know, because we came from the same, we were the same generation.

So they loved the Everlies.

And Buddy Holly.

Buddy Holly, when he died, it was the biggest shock of our lives.

You know, that and Manchester United crashing were the two big,

suddenly death comes into your world.

Yeah, yeah.

But I mean, the 60s was intense.

I had Paul McCartney on the podcast a few years ago, and it was towards the end of 2020, which was such a turbulent year anyway, in so many ways, and things haven't really calmed down all that much since.

And I was saying to him, like, did it feel apocalyptic to you when you were in the 60s when so many seismic things were kicking off, the world was on the brink of nuclear war, and there were race riots, and there were these terrible wars happening in Vietnam, and assassinations of Martin Luther King and the Kennedys.

Did it feel like the world was coming to an end?

Yeah, definitely the Kennedy time, very much so.

But, you know, when we would protest at Cambridge because they were of the Cuban missile crisis, we were not at all in favor of being exterminated because they were putting missiles in Cuba.

But, you know, back then we were a bit radical.

I mean, I was on the Oldermars and March in 58 I think quite by chance I was in Berlin and saw him give the Ishbiene Berlin speech.

I'd have no idea we were hitchhiking JFK.

Yeah, so I saw him that year and he was killed at the end of that year I think at my second term in Cambridge and that was very shocking and I think that swung things around a bit.

But you weren't one of those people who felt like all hope is lost kind of thing.

Well I think you can't do much about it.

You know what I mean?

So and I think there was less news and certainly less internet opinion going on and people, you know, so and there was satire.

That was a saviour, really.

The satire boom.

First of all, my life was changed by Beyond the Fringe.

And then David Frost came along and every week was, that was the week that was.

And we loved that.

We watched that at college.

And so when Python came along, it was at the end of the satire boom and it had all been done.

So we didn't do any satire, satire, which is why it survived, because it has no topical references at all.

It was more like categories of humour or upper-class twits, but not specific.

So I think even Saturday Night Live, you see it earlier now and you think, oh yeah, Gerald Ford fell downstairs.

But it's not, you have to remember that to make you laugh.

But Python has nothing that ties itself to any particular time.

So it can last a little longer.

A big part of your life was meeting George Harrison.

Yes.

Which happened, sort of mid-70s when you just.

50 years ago, in 10 days.

50 years ago.

Yeah.

I was going to go play football for my village at the Six Aside.

In France.

In France.

And

I was training up with the team.

And then they said, oh, would you go to LA?

We were having a screening of the Holy Grail.

There's going to be a big screening at the Director's Guild.

And I tossed up, you know, would more people laugh at me playing football or on screen?

So I thought, well, I better do my bit.

And I went with Gilliam to LA,

and there was a big screening at the Director's Guild.

And I was watching at the back, and it went really well.

And then there was a tap on my shoulder.

I turned around, and it was George Harrison.

He said, I've been looking for you.

He said, no, we can't talk here.

Let's go up to the projection room and smoke a reefer.

I thought, okay.

And so up we went.

And then they threw us out and we went for dinner and there was Olivia, there's a picture of us that night, Olivia and Terry Gilliam.

And they were tired and George said, do you want to come back to hear some of my music?

I'm recording.

I said, yeah, sure, lovely.

So we went to A ⁇ M and he played me some of extra texture.

And then we went

back to the hotel and we played guitar and we just talked all night.

That was like,

we just bonded.

Yeah.

What did you talk about?

I think we talked about what it was like being in a group

because because I think we had similar roles in our group.

So there were two big blocks.

He had Dennon and McCartney and we had John and Graham wrote together and Mike and Terry wrote together.

So I was also, you know, in the middle of it.

And it's a sort of strange role because you're being outvoted by more powerful people.

So that was interesting.

And we talked about everything, really.

But once when we were filming Brian, he came to the set and he said, how's it going?

I said, well, it's okay.

It's not easy to get on camera, you know, with John John and Mike.

He said, Imagine how hard it was getting into the studio with John and Paul.

So I said, Fair enough, say no more.

That's it, you got it.

And he, of course, funded completely and completely funded.

He mortgaged his house and his business to raise the cash and put it all on the life of Brian.

Amazing.

Insane.

Because your backers had pulled out at the last minute.

Lou Grade had read the script.

unfortunately some of our younger people at EMI had bought it and loved it and Lou Grade finally read it and said no we can't have nothing to do with this and we started building sets into Nichire on our own money so we had to sue him but worse we had to go and find the money and it was really impossible.

I went to New York with John Goldstone the producer and you know it was like selling springtime for Hitler.

They did not want to know.

And then we went to LA

and they were even war didn't want to know.

And then finally, George Coleman said, I've got the money, I've got it, you're on, you know.

So, it was extraordinary.

With no strings attached, or no, right.

And I said, Why did you do that?

He said, I want to see the movie.

So, you know, I mean, it's fairly incredible.

Yeah.

I mean, you think about it.

He mortgaged all of Fry Park, everything he had.

Fryer Park was his house.

His house in Henley.

Right.

You know, if you can imagine, you go to the wife and say, what did you do today?

Oh, I put all our money on a Python film about Christ, you know.

Oh, good luck, thanks a lot.

Was that Olivia he was with?

Olivia, yeah.

And how did she feel about it?

I don't know.

I've got to ask her.

Because, yeah, that would have been a weird conversation.

Really?

Are you sure?

Yeah.

Because it was an extraordinary thing to do.

Yeah.

I mean, four and a half million dollars in those days is still a lot of money, you know, a huge amount of money.

I mean, he probably had a lot, right?

No.

No, I mean, I think that was it.

You know, if you mortgage your house and your business to raise capital, that means you've got nothing in the bank.

That is your bank.

But I think they might have been doing a Bellistock and Bloom.

I think they might have been doing the producer.

I think it might have been a tax thing.

Okay.

Because when it started to make money, they had to change it round a bit.

Put it overseas in Rotterdam.

Yeah.

And they set up handmade films to make it.

They set up handmade films to make it.

Yeah, okay.

Which ended up being kind of a brilliant outfit.

They made some great films.

They made some very good films.

Gilliam's second one, I think it was Time Bandits, was a very good film.

They made With Nail.

They made with Nail.

They bought with Nail.

I mean, that is.

And then I did the last one, Nuns on the Run with Robbie.

Right, okay.

They did a private function as well.

Yes.

And

they did Privates on Parade, Scrubbers.

That was a good one.

Bullshot.

That's a fun one.

I thought Billy Connolly sang the song in that.

And The Missionary, of course, as well.

Right.

And Mona Lisa.

Mona Lisa was a good film.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Private function.

Did you ever write music with George?

Yes, it's in my show.

The one thing we ever wrote together is in my show.

It's from Rutland Weekend Television.

And it's a brilliant joke.

I won't spoil it because it's a visual joke.

But people haven't seen it.

Most people haven't seen it, so it's a big shock to them.

And it's a nice surprise.

But we wrote it together and it's in his book of lyrics, Idol Harrison.

I like that.

Very good.

And one of the things that defined his life was a spiritual search that he was on.

Yes.

Did you get caught up in the spiritual quest along with George?

The only thing we ever disagreed with was religion.

Okay.

And we, you know, we talked, and I mean, even on his deathbed, he said to me, I'm okay because I'm not going to have to go through rebirth.

I said, oh, I'll give anything to be reborn.

You know, but we were funny about it.

It wasn't a problem because we were friends.

We could talk about anything.

But I'm not religious.

I like science.

Yeah.

I think religion is an early attempt to describe the universe.

You know, you wonder what God was doing for the first five and a half billion years of life on this planet.

Where was he?

What was he doing?

But there's a strand of philosophy, like an interest in philosophy that runs through a lot of the Python stuff and in your songs as well.

That to me seems kind of inspired by some of the same yearning and the same questions about about what's it all about and I mean George was a Catholic yeah and he became a Hindu and

so it's it's quite interesting I mean it was it's one belief for another belief but I mean it made him if you see that film of them all in India suddenly they're all happy again together it's really sweet

I mean because I think John goes there and he's strung out and they're all kind of grumpy and mean and then suddenly they're all kind of you know playing and it sunsets and they're happy it's very sweet And I think that was a very powerful impression on them and it kept them together for a little while, I think.

But George was always really generous and kind.

Anybody came in, the waiter, anything, he was always the same to everybody, open and kind.

You know, if he could help people or fund them, or that's what he did.

Do you think he changed your own perspective on things?

Yes, absolutely.

Not in necessarily in a religious way, but in being kind and, you know, sharing and being, you know, funnier.

And I mean, I was going through a divorce, so he cheered me up by telling me I was going to die.

You know, so it's quite good, you know.

But he also put things in perspective.

He said, you know, you can have all the money in the world.

You can be the most famous people in the world, but you're still going to have to die.

And that's a very good philosophy to have.

It's a good reminder that every day can be your last.

And I think I use that quite often in comedy.

So, you know, just remind people, you're alive this minute, this is it.

And you're kind of lucky to be in such a nice place, usually.

But he could be quite a naughty boy, too.

We had a lot of fun and we had a lot of gigs, and people played and stayed and

listened to music and tracks he was trying to deal with.

Did you like this one?

Do you like that one?

All that.

Yeah, because in some ways it looked as though he was just seeking for strategies to prepare for death in some ways.

Absolutely.

No question.

That's what particularly they learned.

He learned from that, that it was going to be all over.

And what does that mean?

And how does that affect you?

And what do you believe?

And

that particular religion is rebirth and all of that.

And so to what extent did that all help him cope with the terrible attack that he suffered?

How old was he when he was attacked?

It was 1999, wasn't it?

Just after at the millennium, around the millennium.

And

I called him up and I said, John, we come.

And he said, where are you?

So we went there, Tanya and I.

And he was very disturbed.

I've never ever seen him more disturbed.

It was really shocking because they fought for 20 minutes.

He'd been stabbed about 40 times or something.

Yeah, with a butcher's knife and bleeding to death.

And this was just sort of a crazed intruder.

Crazed guy off his meds.

And I think he'd been looking for Paul, but he couldn't find Paul, so it's easier to find find Henley.

And he came over to the wall, smashed in the window.

And George came out, because George was the bold one who told the hell's angels to fuck off.

He was the one who came and said, No, you've got to fuck off out of here now, out of Abbey Row.

But I think he did the same thing.

I think he went at the top of the stage and told him to fuck off, you know.

And then he went and yelled Harry Krishna, and the guy came at him up the stairs with a knife.

It would have been wiser, perhaps, to lock the door and call the police, you know.

So I think Lever called the police, but it took him about 20 minutes to get there.

And this all-out attack took place.

And I think Liv in the end bashed him over the head with a Tiffany lamp.

And they were all passed out when the police arrived.

Blood everywhere.

It was like a scene from a horror film.

It was just, and his son comes through the door and they had mom, mother-in-law, and it was just really horrendous.

And

afterwards, yeah, I know he was very shaken.

They had a, I think it was called a poojo.

We went round and went through the attack bit by bit up the stairs.

There was still blood on the walls and things.

It was like really awful and shocking.

As a kind of therapeutic exercise.

Yes, it was a it's a religious thing.

He says it was a ceremony you went through and relived all this horrible experience.

And we went through it with them and it was just really horrendous.

Really horrendous.

And I think he was still very disturbed.

And I think at the end of that year he started getting cancer.

You know, it was beginning to kill him because I think he died in 2000,

2000, 2001.

And

I'm sure that had an effect because, you know, he's been stabbed so badly with a butcher's knife.

2001 he died, yeah, November 2009.

2001 he died, right?

And then there was

concerts in 2002.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That's so shocking, isn't it?

Really horrible.

That must have shaken you as well to see that happen.

Well, I didn't realise how sick he was.

I was on the phone to him in Switzerland.

I said, What you're doing, he said, I'm writing the liner notes from my last album, and if I don't finish them, then you will.

What even if you don't finish them?

That's when I really realised it was really serious.

He was in, I think, in Switzerland, undergoing some kind of.

So finally, I went back to LA and I then went to see him in the house.

And

it was clear he wasn't going to live very long.

You know, so we hung out and

there was a lovely drummer, Keltner, was there.

You know, various people were there, came through.

But

it was just deeply shocking.

I mean, that you know, he was going to die and he died.

And then I think a year later we did that concert, which was also very moving at the Albert Hall.

You know, it's really, really moving.

Yeah.

You know, people like Jeff Lynn and, you know, friends, and they all came and played.

And Paul played, and, you know, it was lovely, it was very moving.

And at the end, the most moving thing of all is Joe Brown playing the ukulele,

I'll see you in my dreams.

I'll see you in my dreams.

And then all the roses fell from the ceiling.

Because that was the end of a Billy Cotton band show.

They play that every week, I'll see you in my dreams.

It was one of his favourite songs.

All the days

And in dreams, you're always near to me.

I'll see you

in

my dreams.

One of my formative experiences as a youngster was watching Life of Brian with my mum, and she was my comedy ally in my house.

My dad was quite a bit older, he was like 15 years older than her, and he was very conservative and stuffy, and he didn't like any of the stuff I was into.

Right.

But she loved it.

And I must have been about 10 or something, and it really made such a huge impression.

I guess the thing that takes it to another level in my mind is the ending and the song.

Right.

And the fact that you're invested in this character, there's a kind of desperation about it because

the world around him is so mad.

They've mistaken him for someone else.

Everything he tries to do to explain to people goes nowhere.

And then suddenly he's been crucified and he's on the cross.

And it's this sort of unimaginably horrific thing that's happened.

Meanwhile, you're still laughing, there's still jokes.

But yeah, it's transformed by always look on the bright side of life and it becomes something that's manageable rather than just grim.

Yes, I mean, we were writing it and we didn't know how to end it because everybody's been crucified.

What are you going to do?

And I said, well, we should end with a song.

And on the crosses, they said, yeah, on the crosses, we should sing.

But it should be ridiculously cheery-uppy.

It should be like a Disney song, maybe with a whistle.

And we said, but looking on the bright side.

So I went home and I wrote it very, very quickly in St.

John's Wood, you know, in half an hour, an hour.

Because, you know, it's very obvious.

I used some Mickey Baker chords, you know,

got a little riff and a bit of whistle.

Did you have a reference in your mind for what it should sound like?

No, but I started off with, you know, I just went to the

window.

I went to,

I like the Mickey Baker because it would teach you the jazz course, it would

always

look on the bright side of life.

And that was so very simple.

And I thought, oh, that's good.

And then I had to do a verse.

So that was was also quite nice.

And you know, using what the Beatles call the sneaky chord, this one.

The diminished.

They'd call that a sneaky chord.

And George would say, there, sneaky.

So it was nice.

And then I recorded it before we went to Tunisia.

And when I got to the set, I played it for the crew and they liked it very much.

But I sang it very straight.

You know, it was always look on the bright.

And I suddenly realised it should be sung by Mr.

Cheeky as a character I was playing.

And so we went into a bedroom, we put mattresses around the hotel and the sound recorded, so I'm on the floor with a bottle of booker.

And we always look on the bright, side of life, which gives it a much more different feel.

and a bounce.

Because Cheeky said, are you going to be rescued?

He said, no, no, oh, my brother usually rescues me, you know.

So it's kind of very absurd.

But it also has, you know, even when they play it on the morning

thing, you know,

it has a very nice feel to it.

It has an upfeel, even though they've been crucified.

You know,

it's a perfect end for a film, you pull back with this song.

Yeah.

And it worked very well for the film, and then it's just gone on and on.

It has a big life of its own, which is sort of unexpected.

And now it is the number one funeral song in England for the last 20 years.

So I like that.

I love the fact that people choose it for their end.

I think it's very nice.

It's a very touching thing that it happened like that.

Yeah.

Did the lyrics come quite quickly?

I mean, yeah, I think I'd even got all that, you know, life's a piece of shit when you look at it, you know.

I mean, I think I even had that.

So I think, you know,

I think once you've got the shape,

you know, it's quite nice, you know, it's bouncy and

it didn't take me very long and I recorded it and I took it, you know, back to the next day and played it.

And it's, oh, oh great, that's the only time we go up the pub.

So I think it went very nicely.

Is there another song that you're particularly fond of, one that you might be up for playing?

Well, I don't know, most of my songs are about death, you know.

Yeah.

I'll write this one for Graham.

Life will get you in the end

on this one thing you can depend.

Life will get you in the end

rambling round the universe as a human being

could be worse

life's a gift it's not a curse so live

blinding

life

will get you in the end

and so farewell to you my friend

one final thing to try is bend and kiss your ass goodbye.

Cause life will get you in the end.

Wait, continue.

Say no more.

Hey, welcome back, Podcats.

That was Eric Idle talking to me there.

I really enjoyed meeting Eric.

I wasn't sure what to expect.

I'd read a couple of books of his,

one about the whole process of putting Spamolot together, and also his autobiography, which is called, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, a sort of biography.

And I'd really recommend it, actually.

You know, there'll be...

familiar stories in there, but there's lots of really entertaining and interesting detail.

But Eric was so warm and charming, it was great to meet him.

And I'm very grateful to him and his team for sorting it out.

I haven't yet been invited to a ding-dong.

I'll let you know if I get the call.

Speaking of ding-dongs,

thanks a lot if you came to the show at Rough Trade East last week.

That was kind of the album launch show for Buckle Up.

It was good fun, very nice to meet.

Lots of you signing records afterwards.

Seated tickets for the Adam Buxton Band's Norfolk shows on the 13th and 14th in the Norwich Arts Center are now sold out, I believe, but there's a few standing tickets, I think, still around.

Link in the description.

Rosie's being very bouncy.

Aren't you, doglegs?

Straining Straining away.

Well listen.

It's a weekend.

There's no one else around.

So I'm going to let you off the lead for a little bit.

Waddle.

Waddle gingerly like the wind.

It's exciting this time of day, I guess, for doglegs.

Because there's lots of hidden partridges and pheasants.

Even though it's not like she's chasing after them these days

but it's just nice to be in an exciting environment isn't it Rosie it's a little bit like when I was walking down Brick Lane to go to the rough trade east show the other night it's like oh yeah this seems fun and vibrant I feel too old to be part of it but it's still nice to be around it actually what am I saying Of course I was part of it.

I was at the center of it.

All the groovers

coming along to see me play songs from Buckle Up.

I got copies of the album and I went and positioned them over on the rack marked Rough Trade Essentials.

It's probably been moved back now to the modern and alternative section.

Alternative to what, you might ask?

Proper music, some might say.

No, come on, it's good stuff.

Album of the week in the Times, apparently.

I'm assuming that was double-EK rather than EAK.

Anyway, listen, tonal handbreak into this next public service announcement.

I got a message from a friend of the podcast, Jim Down.

He's a doctor, consultant at University College London Hospitals, UCLH.

He works at one of the largest NHS foundation trusts in England, which provides acute and specialist services.

He's written a couple of very good books that I recommend.

But anyway, he got in touch to say, Hope all is well with you and the family.

That was the main thing.

I told him, Yep, we're doing well.

Thanks, Jim.

And then,

after a few lines about some of the more alarming things happening in the world at the moment, he said, In case you want to plug something unequivocally positive and altruistic, it's Organ Donation Week next week, 22nd of September to the 28th-ish.

Jim says, I've taken on a local lead role in our hospital, hospital, and here's some facts.

8,000 people are on the waiting list for a transplant.

1,500 will die waiting due to the lack of an appropriate organ.

One donation can save or transform up to nine lives.

The biggest hurdle is consent from relatives who are understandably very distressed at the time when their loved one has suffered something like a catastrophic head injury or a brain bleed and the relatives aren't sure what their loved one would have wanted.

They need to give permission even with the opt-out system that currently operates for organ donations in this country.

Being on the register makes it clear to the family what you'd want.

90% of people say they'd like to donate but only 40% of people are on the register.

Organs are in particularly short supply for black, Asian and minority ethnic people who have high rates of kidney failure, for example, so are at particular need.

And Jim says, and we only take the organs when you're dead.

Promise.

Brackets, either brain dead on a ventilator or when withdrawal of treatment occurs because it's futile and the heart stops.

So please register your consent for organ donation today and talk about your wishes to your loved ones.

From Jim.

Thanks, Jim.

This afternoon, I went to register my decision to donate organs to the NHS.

There's a link in the description that will take you there as well if you want to do the same.

I appreciate there are all sorts of reasons

that

make people uncomfortable with the idea of donating their organs, you know.

But I've always been into the idea.

as someone who

would love a little slice of immortality cake.

Okay, so it's not immortality, but you're maybe helping someone else live a little longer,

or at least have a better quality of life while they are alive.

What a great thing that would be.

Okay, that's it for this week's podcast.

Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his always invaluable production support and general great encouragement.

Thanks, Seamus.

Thanks to Helen Green.

She does the artwork for the podcast.

Thank you to everyone at ACAST

who works so hard liaising with my sponsors and thereby keeping the show on the road.

But thanks most of all to you.

Come on,

you listened right the way you even listened to the whole of the intro, didn't you?

Oh, okay, well, still, you made it this far, and you listened to the

organ donation thing because you're great and I appreciate your loyalty, which is why

on this beautiful but chilly evening, I'm proposing a bit of human warmth with a creepy hug.

Come here,

good to see you.

Thank you.

And until the next time we share the same sonic space,

please go carefully.

And if it's of any use whatsoever, please do bear in mind that I love you.

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