.
"Neil's songs are
the only things that go down unequivocally well wherever we
play. He's very versatile.
"No, I'll tell you the truth. He has a shameless
love of dressing up."
- Michael Palin, 1981
From
Rock Reporter:
"Having done one-man shows, it's a lot better to do a show
with a lot of other people. . . even if they are bastards like
John Cleese. You know, his idea of a practical joke. . . You know
the rule about timing in comedy? Make the right timing entrance.
So, you're just about to make an entrance in a sketch, and he
creeps up behind you and holds you by the arms! So you're going
(makes struggling noises mixed with British expletives). Then
he lets you go and you have to go on and pull it all back. There's
a lot of that, a lot of anarchy."
"When
we did Drury Lane, we did it for four weeks. We were only supposed
to do two but the promoter kept prevailing upon us. But we said,
'Four weeks. That is it.' So it was the last night and they had
a mobile outside recording it. For four weeks, on this "election"
sketch — we all had to do different things — but the
bit I hated was, I had to put on these frogman's flippers and
this raincoat and appear as the candidate for the Slightly Silly
Party. And Eric would say, 'Are you at all disappointed?' And
all I had to say was, 'No, not at all. Try again next time.'
So, on the last night, Eric said, 'Are you
at all disappointed?' I looked him in the eye and I snatched the
microphone from him. He was grinning, wondering what was going
to happen. I said, 'No, not at all. As I always say, climb every
mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, (Innes begins
to sing) until you find your dream.' And I was flapping towards
the front of the stage, singing, and I can see Cleese sitting
there, clutching his head to his desk and groaning, waiting for
the sketch to be over. Then I put the mic back in the stand and
just sort of flapped off. The upshot was, they kept it in on the
album, but they had to pay the publishers of The Sound Of Music.
(Laughter) Cleese said, 'You bastard. Your ad-lib cost us
a fortune.'"
"I'd
never really worked with Peter Cook before. It was wonderful
to see him do his bits and be in banter and backstage chat
with him. He was a genuinely, brilliantly funny comic person,
and more at ease offstage than he was on. I think he got
a bit more nervous when he went on stage. And of course
television did him no favors at all. But offstage he was
the quickest, funniest, wickedly funny man ever. And a damn
nice bloke as well. So that was nice. And also of course
I met Elenor Bron and other people; people I'm still working
with.
"Allen
Bennet was a terrifically nice person to meet, and John
Fortune, who said at one of them, 'My ambition is to be
the very best supporting actor.' You know, to do feed lines
in such a way. There's a skill to do them
at exactly the right emphasis and exactly the right pace
to get the best out of the following line. And I thought
that was an admirable ambition, because nobody pegged that
out as a craft at all. But he wanted to make that his signature,
as it were, his whole purpose. And of course he's gone on
to do wonderful things on British Television with John Bird.
And it's exactly that. He's not wavered from that one bit,
which I think is brilliant. So yes, it was very, very, very,
very good company to be in."
Neil
with Victoria Wood
Protest
Song
From "Pleasure at her Majesty's"
Amnesty benefit, 1976
Real Video med quality 1.1MB streamdownload
Spontaneous
Neil
as Stoop Solo
1981
John Altman conducts the
Trinity College Big Band
Amnesty benefit, London Palladium
Real Video med quality 1.9MB streamdownload
Paranoid's
Society
Neil,
Michael Palin and the rest
Amnesty benefit, London Palladium
1980 or 1981
Real Video med quality 1.1MB streamdownload
What
it was all for...
.
"After
Holy Grail we did the first farewell tour of the UK. Then
I think it was Canada. Then I think it was Drury Lane, and
then it was New York. And then Canada… we did a television
thing, Johnny Carson show. We came down from San Francisco
to L.A. and did that.
"Well,
it's quite funny, because I had my big fiberglass boots.
They made me look about 10 foot tall. And all of Al Green's
band, you know, his guitarists, they thought these boots
were like really wicked and they all tried them and they
all fell off. It's a very childish memory. That's what I
remember. Actually, Van Morrison was on the show as well,
which I can remember. When was this? Early 70's. What was
Johnny Carson doing with all these musicians on? Unless
there were two shows. But anyway, they were there in the
studio and they had to have a go on these boots. They're
sort of dangerous, actually, but I was used to them. And
I think it was fairly bizarre and it went over most people's
heads. It certainly went over Johnny Carson's head. But
then again, I was 10 foot tall! Anyway… heh heh…
after that, there was Drury Lane in '74, and then City Center
in '76."
photo
from Kim Howard Johnson's book
"First 280 Years of Monty Python"
(used with permission)
them
at exactly the right emphasis and exactly the right pace
to get the best out of the following line. And I thought
that was an admirable ambition, because nobody pegged that
out as a craft at all. But he wanted to make that his signature,
as it were, his whole purpose. And of course he's gone on
to do wonderful things on British Television with John Bird.
And it's exactly that. He's not wavered from that one bit,
which I think is brilliant. So yes, it was very, very, very,
very good company to be in."
