I WAS UP TILL TWO WORKING ON THE SCRIPT AND THEN ROSE AT SEVEN TO COMPLETE IT AND GET IT TO SKIP FOR PRINTING AND DISTRIBUTION. TWO HOURS OF INTERVIEWS, A WORKING LUNCH WITH THE GREEDY BASTARD promoters, a quick interview for CBC outside the bus, and then we race to Massey Hall to work onstage for a couple of hours. Now that’s a full working day, lad, and don’t you forget it.4 It’s a beautiful, warm, springlike day in Toronto, perfect weather for sitting in a hotel room giving interviews. [Don’t start with the fucking irony.—Ed.] Last night there was a fire alarm at the hotel. Major alarms went off, people descended to the lobby, fire engines arrived clanging. I was so shagged out5 I slept right through it.
I bitch and moan about the interviews, but sometimes they can be quite interesting, if only to find out what I think about things. Today, for instance, I absolutely deny that Canadians are boring. I say it’s only because they live next to the Americans and are a little backward in homicide that they seem comparatively dull. In response to a question from Steve Colwill about Arnold on the radio, I hear myself say that I think Americans have gone mad and shouldn’t be allowed to be in charge of the world anymore. They should be diagnosed by the U.N. as legally bonkers. There is a shocked silence.
“Have I gone too far?” I ask.
“No. I absolutely agree with you,” he says.
Between interviews I jot down some notes for my diary. Here, by the way, is a list of things to avoid saying to the Pythons.
a) How did you get together?
b) How did you come up with the name Monty Python?
c) What is your favorite sketch?
d) Are you the gay one?
e) Which one are you?
f) Will you ever get back together again?
g) Are you Mike?
Massey Hall is a very pleasant old venue to play, a high, scalloped room with many tiers and pillars like an old music hall. Nowhere is very far from the stage. Peter and I sit in the empty theater rehearsing the Argument Clinic sketch. It is one of the finest of the Cleese-Chapman sketches and is the most fun to play, as it is so precisely written. It’s like a Tom Stoppard play in its cryptic use of logic. It’s probably the best sketch they ever wrote, but can we memorize it in time? It has some tricky bits. (I once played it with Michael Palin in French on French television.) Jen holds the book and we sit running the words until fatigue overcomes me and I have to go take a nap. I awake refreshed and lift weights and have some dinner. It’s a make-or-break day for this show. If we can make Toronto laugh and keep them laughing, then the tour can take off and fly. But tonight is the real test.
Somebody up there likes us, because everything works. It’s a triumph. We pull it off. All the changes, all the new stuff, all the reordering, everything hits. The show takes off like a rocket. We get them early, and we hold them, and we run with them to the intermission. They are noisy, happy, bright, and hugely responsive. I would say it was one of the best shows we have ever done. After all the hard work it is very satisfying. The reaction is better than we could have hoped, cheering and shouting and curtain calls, and we all feel very good about ourselves. What clever children we are. Only one thing goes wrong. The local promoter surprises us and hands out a free program that kills stone-dead the sales of our elaborate and expensively printed souvenir program. I have to sign hundreds of the damn freebies instead and grubby ticket stubs, too. The tight-fisted Torontonians! How is a Greedy Bastard supposed to live?