25

BRIGHT SIDE ON BROADWAY

John Du Prez and I did a second North American concert tour in 2003. The point of a Greedy Bastard Tour is that, having taken twenty-two people around America, the next time, in order to make money, you take only yourself. The next time I took only two other performers and a band, but William Morris still made more than me. Eddie Izzard and Billy Connolly were encouraging me to do more stand-up, more improv, more talking about myself, so I did. We went all the way across North America on a rock-and-roll tour bus, traveling fifteen thousand miles in three months, playing at beautiful old theaters. The Greedy Bastard Diary is my daily account of this journey. In Vancouver as the holidays approached, I tried out a new song John and I had written called “Fuck Christmas.” It was like throwing a hand grenade into the crowd—the audience response almost blew us offstage. Each line killed. Especially the end:

Go tell the Elves

To fuck themselves

It’s Christmas time again.

Apparently, we could still write funny songs. Just as well, because John and I were working on an exciting new project. In the Nineties, I had worked on a Python CD-ROM game of The Holy Grail. If it could become a game, I wondered, why couldn’t it become a musical? Grail was perfect for a musical. Every sketch seemed to demand a song. It appeared to have all the elements of a great comic stage show, a mock-heroic pastiche of Wagnerian grandeur, with bickering knights riding around on imaginary horses—but would the Pythons ever give us permission? Only one way to find out. I wrote a play, adapting the ninety-eight characters in the movie to a more manageable eight, and then John and I recorded half a dozen songs and sent them off to the guys. Amazingly, they were all intrigued by the idea, they loved “The Song That Goes Like This,” and wonderfully they said yes.

Spamalot was born.

I’d had some previous experience of Broadway in the late Nineties when Garth Drabinsky, the Canadian producer of Ragtime, asked me to write the book for Seussical, a musical based on the Dr. Seuss books. I was shamefully ignorant of Seuss, so I read everything, including some interesting biographies, and set to work writing a treatment for Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, brilliant songwriters who had a huge hit with Ragtime. I decided Horton should be the central story because I loved the tiny Who world, desperately seeking help. Inside that plot I crammed as many references to the other stories as I could, eventually delivering a heavily illustrated treatment in the summer of 1998. Lynn and Stephen loved it and set to work writing the score, which they did remarkably quickly, and it was soon filled with brilliant songs.

But then the fat lady sang.

Garth Drabinsky sold his company to Mike Ovitz, the former CAA agent, who soon found a second set of books with the real figures, and now faced an uphill task of trying to turn around a debt-ridden theatrical company. Garth himself fled from the feds to Canada, where he would eventually do some time, but the experience set me on the path to Broadway, and my own Holy Grail. I was supposed to write the book for Seussical but, once Garth departed, new management came in with a different idea. I did play the role of the Cat in the Hat for the Broadway investors’ tryout, and Lynn and Stephen wrote me a special song, “How Lucky You Are,” which took place in total chaos as the set fell apart, but at no stage was I tempted to swap my wife, child, and home in LA for eight shows a week on Broadway, and I turned down repeated offers to play the Cat. Seussical taught me a lot about musical theater and what it takes to make things work, from having good producers to getting the book right, and how to advance the plot through the music and dance, a lesson choreographer Casey Nicholaw would repeatedly drum into me on Spamalot.

Now, I had more experience of Broadway, and I also had a script, a title, and the rights for The Holy Grail. What next? My lawyer and good friend Tom Hoberman suggested I approach Bill Haber, another founding father of CAA who was venturing onto Broadway. It took me twenty minutes to sell the idea to Bill in my LA home, where I had laid out the Holy Grail dolls and some of the tons of merchandise from that movie. I played him a couple of the songs that John Du Prez and I had demoed and handed him the script. He was in before he was out the door.

“What about a workshop?” I said.

“We won’t need a workshop,” he said. “This stuff has been playing successfully for thirty years. We’ll go straight into rehearsal.”

Wow.

“Who would you like to direct?” he asked.

“I’d like Mike Nichols,” I said.

“Who wouldn’t?” he agreed. “But it takes Mike ages to respond.”

“I know him, and he loves the music of John and me.”

“Alright, I’ll send it to him.”

Mike called me three days later.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he said.

From the beginning, Mike was determined to have “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” in Spamalot. He had come to the Greedy Bastard Tour in New York and seen how the audience responded to the song, joining in and singing along happily. He wanted Spamalot to end that way too. For him it would simply be the finale, but Casey and I put the whole song into the play while Mike was away in California opening Closer. I couldn’t get Act Two to work and I felt we needed something familiar near the beginning, something the audience could relax to, a little moment for Patsy, where he tries to cheer up the despairing King Arthur. So, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” which started off in Brian, eventually ended up in Grail, and on Broadway.

Spamalot changed my life. I thought the play would be funny, but I had no idea it would be so successful and so well received. Mike Nichols was, of course, the key. Not only did he reassure the other Pythons that here was someone responsible enough to be left in charge of their baby, but as he was both a comedian and a fantastic director, the play would be in the very best of hands.

I had met Mike back in 1975 at a party at Paul Simon’s, where I talked to a stranger for two hours and found him the funniest and most interesting man I’d ever met, and we yakked away until he finally left.

“Who was that?” I said when he’d gone.

People looked at me like I was nuts.

“That was Mike Nichols!”

Oh, duh.

Ironically, as Mike would always say, when I was at college I was a big fan of his records with Elaine May, but I had never seen either of them live or on television, so I simply hadn’t recognized him. One of the great delights of life from that moment on was lunch or dinner or theater or anything at all with Mike. Once, in San Paul de Vence, we passed an art gallery selling a sculpture by Salvador Dali. Mike stopped and went in.

“How much is that Dali in the window?”

He loved being funny. And outrageous. He was late one day for rehearsal and was apologizing profusely to me:

“The traffic was horrendous. The whole of the Upper East Side was yidlock.”

He would look so happy, with that lovely smile, when I cracked up. He was always fantastically generous to his writer. I have never been so encouraged by anyone. He wouldn’t let anything pass; he’d badger you until you’d finally send him an email with a new proposal he liked, and he would simply respond, “Perfect.”

Mike’s most brilliant decision was picking Casey Nicholaw for choreographer. It was Casey’s first Broadway show, helming the Terpsichore, as Variety might say, and it was an utterly inspired choice. His choreography, a perfect balance between sweet and silly, and his own amazing calmness and leadership inspired the whole company. As for the actors, many of them came to Mike. David Hyde Pierce called and insisted on being in it. Hank Azaria said he had known his lines since he was twelve. I had always wanted Tim Curry for King Arthur, and when Mike heard him read the part at my house, so did he. The Lady of the Lake was the hardest part to cast. I had created the character as an African American diva and later she often was, but Mike said one day, “There’s someone I want you to look at.” So we all assembled in the Shubert Theatre and Sara Ramirez came onstage and sang a Sondheim piece. She blew us away. She was so powerful, so passionate, and so goddamn sexy. Every man in the room was smitten.

Oh yes, Mike!

Next year she won the Tony.

Mike brought a high seriousness to Spamalot. He insisted the actors always take it seriously.

“If you don’t take it seriously, why should the audience?”

Sitting behind him, watching him give notes, was a master class in directing. I had almost five years of it. He told them to listen to what the others were saying. Often, he would have them lie on the ground and just say the lines, no acting, no emphasis. If they found a new laugh or a new piece of shtick and kept it for another performance, he would make them take it out.

“You must kill your babies” was his refrain.

He insisted they believe in their characters. Often, he was quite severe. Some actors he insulted. A very small number he made cry. He would not let anything through. His rule in productions was “No Assholes.” We had one, who thought it funny to slap another actor. Mike fired him at lunch.

One day he was being very severe about a scene:

“You must make them real!”

“But Mike,” I said. “You are talking about the Knights Who Say Ni!”

He laughed. But he was right. I think he had noticed something about Python. We always believed in everything we did. After all, the Minister of Silly Walks is only funny if he believes he really is a minister with hard choices to make on a declining budget. If for one second he doesn’t, then the sketch falls flat.

Something rather special was happening in the large mirrored rehearsal room on Forty-Second Street. The great news had come in before we even started rehearsals that we had sold out the entire run of previews in Chicago. I kept writing to the other Pythons, Don’t miss this. But they did, except for John, who came to visit. He walked in just as they were rehearsing his song “Knights of the Round Table,” and he was totally delighted. We hugged and it was really sweet to see him. The cast saw him too and perked up and performed the life out of the number. There were tears in our eyes as we sat side by side and watched them, thinking how amazing it was to sit here thirty years later and watch people doing this. John was affable, charming, and complimentary. It was a joy to see him back in the studio as he recorded the lines with Tim Curry. He was hilarious. His God has a wonderful testiness about him.

“Of course it’s a good idea. I’m fucking God, you idiot!”

Mike suggested the billing should read: “and John Cleese as God.”

Subj: Rehearsals

Date: 10/31/2004 6:35:35 AM Pacific Standard Time

From: Eric Idle

To: The Pythons

I just thought you should all know that Spamalot is not only progressing well it is a positive blast. I sit in a warm rehearsal room on 42nd street watching pretty young women in leotards bending, bouncing, and stretching. And the show is pretty good too.

In fact, I sit next to Mike with a big silly grin on my face and tears in my eyes. I can’t explain exactly the appeal: it is something to do with compounding the silliness.

John C came in the other day just as they were rehearsing “The Knights of the Round Table” song he wrote with Graham all those years ago, and he just beamed and glowed. He came to play God. And won. His voice is now in the show.

So the reason I am writing, is to encourage you to drop by the process if you can, I think you’ll find it marvelous and uplifting, and even moderately arousing.

The script, particularly Act Two, was changing daily, but has now locked down into a better shape, and everything seems to flow, though often into unexpected quarters. You’ll see what I mean. I’ll keep you updated in any case. We have another four weeks in NY and then move to the theater in Chicago, where we just announced an extra week of performances. Tim Curry, Hank Azaria, and David Hyde Pierce and all couldn’t be funnier. Or nicer.

Mike says he hasn’t been so happy since The Graduate.

Hugs to all

E

Subj: Re: Two weeks of rehearsal

Date: 11/1/2004 8:08:46 AM Pacific Standard Time

From: Terry Jones

To: Eric Idle

Sent from the Internet

Dear El

Ah the magic of the theatre…sounds wonderful…warm and inviting and arousing…it’s the girls in leotards bending and stretching that really convinces me that the whole thing is going to be a thundering success.

I wish I could get over…but on the other hand, if Bush gets in tomorrow I think I’ll give the US a miss for another four years.

I hear the extra week has sold out already—can this be true?

Fingers crossed all over my tense yet still young body.

Lots of love

Terry

xxoxo

I responded…

Say it ain’t so, Tel. You can’t let the bastards win, and you really must see Spamalot—it’s your creation too.

Would a Hitler victory have stopped you going to Berlin for the Ludo finals? Of course not. Where’s the man I once saw conducting a German band while stripping in front of Nazis at a beer festival in Munich?

I agree anger would be a correct response, but I remain foolishly optimistic.

Miss you

E

There were three blizzards in Chicago during the previews and the cast bonded—we all loved each other and there were many parties and much dancing. Mike had only one major concern. I had written a lyric that contained the hook “You won’t succeed on Broadway if you don’t have any Jews.” He was worried about how this would be received by an audience.

“Well, we’ll just have to try it,” I said. “Only way to find out.”

So, at the opening preview in Chicago the show took off like a rocket. The audience was so into it. “He Is Not Dead Yet” made them yell with happiness. “The Song That Goes Like This” killed. “Find Your Grail” was electrifying. We were all smiles at the intermission. Act Two opens with “Bright Side,” and they actually whistled along.

“Now for it,” said Mike next to me, as what he insisted on calling “The Jew Song” approached. David Hyde Pierce sang, clearly enunciating:

You won’t succeed on Broadway…

If you don’t have any…Jews.

There was a moment of stunned silence. The audience rocked back in their seats mouths open, and then instantly rocked forward again screaming with laughter. At the end of the number they applauded and applauded and applauded. Some people even stood. It was a mammoth hit.

“Well, I guess that’s okay then,” said Mike, beaming that wonderful beam.

© Brigitte Lacombe

Mike and me.

By the time we moved to Broadway, thanks to reviews and word of mouth from Chicago, we had a huge box-office advance. We opened on St. Patrick’s Day. All the Pythons attended. There was a glittering audience. Mike had pulled in quite a crowd. Mountains of opening-night gifts flooded into my hotel room overlooking Forty-Fourth Street. My wife, daughter, and sister-in-law Joyce were all getting dolled up. Resplendent in a new charcoal cashmere coat from my exceptionally generous producer, Bill Haber, I walked to the theater from the back entrance of my hotel down Forty-Fifth Street and across Times Square, thinking to myself, I must remember this and how it feels. I was elegantly dressed in a brand-new Issey Miyake tux with an outrageous Day-Glo shirt with a fake tie in luminescent green. Smart but silly. I was aware that the picture we were about to take with the Pythons would be the one used of us for the next six years, or forever if we never met again. It had been seven years since the last photograph of us together at the Aspen Comedy Festival. We only seemed to get bigger.

Shubert Alley was closed off, with security people who recognized me and let me through. Backstage there were happy laughing people from Fiddler on the Roof, and Harvey Fierstein was there for the Gypsy Robe presentation, a Broadway opening-night tradition that Harvey in his wonderfully precise voice explained to me. They handed the traditional robe to the youngest of our chorus ladies. Then they hugged us and wished us good luck and left, and Casey said, “Alright everybody, just one chorus of ‘Knights of the Round Table,’ ” and right there they all snapped into the closing song-and-dance routine. This was so sensible and so centering and such a smart thing to do that I admired Casey and his brilliance all over again. We were bonded and centered and ready. Nothing much for an author to do except hang around and wait for the PR folks to deliver me up to the media.

I was taken out and grilled in front of the theater for the world press, then back along the alley into the Booth Theatre, where the Pythons were being held downstairs. They seemed to be at ease and looking forward to seeing the show, sipping drinks in the mirrored bar, and I hugged them all. John was looking particularly distinguished. We were all anxious to get on with it, and soon the relatives were shepherded away and we were left waiting on the stairs. It all felt strangely familiar. John pushed Mike around like a schoolboy.

“You still can’t keep your hands off him, can you?” I said, and we were once again that odd group of strange men backstage waiting to go on.

We were led out to the front of the Shubert to face the electrical storm of the cameras amidst cheering and screaming from the crowd across the street. The Pythons were all gracious and affectionate and then we disgorged into the celebrity-packed theater. Whoopi Goldberg said hello. Lorne Michaels smiled. I spied Barbara Walters and Mike Wallace from 60 Minutes, and there was a general air of anticipation. Soon the lights dimmed, the overture played to laughter, and we were under way with “Finland.”

I thought the show went really well, especially for an opening night. Mike hated the audience, and the cast thought they were down, but the people there experienced the most joyous and wondrous opening night in a long time. At the end, the cheers were deafening and Tim Curry very kindly called the author up onstage; I got a huge ovation and then Mike and then Casey and then John Du Prez came up too. We all took a bow and then I said, “I must ask up a group from Britain without whom we wouldn’t all be here today: John…Paul, George, and Ringo,” and then we pulled the Pythons up onstage. I was looking at my daughter’s face in the front row and winking at her and just feeling this warmth and enormous love for all the Pythons together again. Finally, we cued the music and we all sang “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” until the curtain came down and there was a great deal of hugging. Mike Palin was in tears; John too had a tear in his eye and kissed me and said well done. I told everybody that the Pythons coming made the evening for me, and it was true. It was all fantastic really.

The Ratfuck (Mike’s ubiquitous term for any black-tie event with rubber chicken) was held at Roseland and was loud and big and meaty with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and a huge castle built out of Spam cans with a cartoon Holy Grail in the center of it. I was interviewed and photographed and then was caught near the door by a series of well-wishers. Nice people crowded around me. Irene and Buck Henry were glowing with enthusiasm. Tom Hoberman was in tears. A lawyer crying! Elliot Brown said, “Do you know how rare this is?” In twenty years of going to the theater, only three times could he remember an opening like this. I was happy to see Roger Waters there and glad he loved it, as he was one of the original investors in the movie. Coco Schwab came to get me and drag me over to a grinning David Bowie standing with Lou Reed and the adorable Iman. Both musicians thought Sara Ramirez a gold mine and had the idea to make money from her. I told them they were too late. Also there was Eddie Izzard, Python fan extraordinaire, who had flown in to New York from Scandinavia for one night only to attend our opening on Broadway, and then immediately returned to his tour in Sweden.

The next day, I walked into Sardi’s and the producers were all having lunch and they stood and applauded me. By then the box office was going nuts. The reviews were apparently sensational, though I stuck to my guns and didn’t read them. We had done over $900,000 in the morning. By 2:00 p.m. we’d passed the million-dollar mark in a single day, and by the evening show we were already over two million and making Broadway history. So not just a great show, not just great reviews; great box office too. We had pulled it off. The grand slam.

Did I learn anything? Certainly. First, Mike’s Law: Only work with the best. Second, Mike’s Second Law: Never give up. Third: Always work with Mike.