Eric Idle: “Cheer up. You’re gonna die”

27:39we're approaching a levels now a quick word on comedy would you be enjoying because it'd be quite hard i don't know did you have lp records would you would you be able to enjoy comedy yet or well i found it um i went to see my friend and i would go to we go to london and go to plays a lot you know um look back in anger those sort of places the royal court theater but once day we booked to see a thing called Beyond the Fringe at the Fortune Theatre. Where are you now? This is still at school? 16 or 17. Yeah, yeah. And I never laughed so hard ever in my life. We roll around the wall. We have standing seats, which is great because we've never stayed in a chair.

28:21And it's Peter Cork and Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore, Beyond the Fringe. And it's so funny. I never realised you were allowed to laugh at all these figures, the authority figures, the police, the army, the church, the monarchy, being ripped apart, just destroyed by them. Because they're kind of post-war, first comedian wave. And Cook is a genius of comedy. And he impersonated the prime minister. And so, Macmillan, that was not allowed. You've never seen before. And so I got their record and I learned all their monologues. And that's all I wanted to do from then on. It'd be funny.

29:02I mean, I got to Cambridge and then I auditioned immediately for the College Review. Which is where they had come from. Which is where? Some of the members of Beyond the Fringe had come through the same pipe. Oh, yeah, two from Cambridge and two from Oxford. Very similar to Python. Gosh. So when you were there, I mean, that could have almost been bespoke, given everything we've talked about so far. This dichotomy between prison and escape, between scholar and subversive. and suddenly you're watching people do the things that you perhaps begin to think you were born to do. I don't think that yet.

29:35I think you've got people who are speaking to you, addressing you personally, like Elvis and then, you know, Jonathan Miller, and he's talking to you. He's very funny, Jonathan, when he moves around. And I love them immediately. I just adored them, and I must have been boring people at school with their monologues, you know. I don't know. You're probably making them laugh as well. It's possible. So you get to Cambridge. I mean, how big a deal was that? What did the word mean to you? Because my school, it was, you know, extraordinary if you didn't get in and you applied. It was like the end of the world as we know it.

30:12I sensed that you wouldn't have been putting that kind of pressure on yourself. Nobody went. That college alone, you know, alone Cambridge. And so because of this wonderful master, Mr. Fry, from me in the RAF. and i once bumped into him at 16 in venice he said good lord idol what are you doing here and that might have tipped him you had an inner life travel was very important to me getting out going to europe was amazing gosh um so you get there uh i mean it would have been like going from black and white into color would totally i mean it was just heaven yes just amazing it's like i mean now we would say hogwarts or something like that you know the harry potter school.

30:54I mean, the architecture. My daughter thinks of boarding school. No, that's not like that. Not like that. God, no. But Cambridge is. Cambridge was just fabulous. Straight away. Oh, yeah. No chip on your shoulder, no sense of face against the window. I didn't know what classes were, really. So you're just there to absorb. They're having sherry parties with the master and that, you know. This is okay. We'd have a smog of alcohol into the school. We used to make our own elderberry wine under the boilers, you know. So you dive in headfirst? I joined the Dramatic Society because I thought it would be a good way to meet girls.

31:33Yes. Well, that's not true, is it? Somewhat, it is, because there were no girls in your colleges. No, I know, but you also loved performing and you loved drama. I mean, it's two things are true. I don't think I've done much acting. Really? I've done a bit. I was in Toad of Toad Hall. Okay. Who were you? I was the second field mouse. Oh, all right. I'll take it back then. who weren't an event. No, but I chose over the first film, I actually had more lines. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. The signs are emerging. The seeds are being sown. So you joined the Drama Society. You're presumably a good student as well.

32:05No, I immediately learned that you didn't have to go to lectures. Right, so you could read a book much quicker than you could listen to something. So that side of things started winding down a bit. No, because then if you don't have to go, you had a tutorial every week. You had to write an essay, obviously, but you had to read the books. And if you read the books and had an opinion, it's English, nobody could question what you said because it's your opinion. It's as good as anybody else's, you know. Precocious isn't quite the right word because you're 19, 20 years old by now, but you know your own mind even at this age.

32:36I think I'm pretty good at finding where the best time is. Yes. It's a very useful survival skill. So where were the best times in Cambridge? Well, at the end of the first, I realized I wasn't going to be an actor. I wasn't bored. I was in the Strindbergs, the father. I'm pretty dickily bad. You were bored by that? Well, yeah, I didn't want to do that. Okay. And at the end of it, they had a party, and I'd entertain them. I wrote a cabaret sending up The Good Woman of Szechuan, which is a Brechtian player, which they'd done rather pretentiously, and I just ripped their asses. So they said, oh, you should apply for the college review.

33:14And I said, what's that? He said, no, it's a review. It held next term. so I went to an audition with two of the other guys in it and I auditioned for Bill Oddy and Timbrook Taylor which is very weird isn't it and they said get rid of the other two you can come in how did that feel I wasn't sure I didn't know what it was I'd never seen one because you'd watched Beyond the Fringe and you knew a bit about how that came about I'm surprised you didn't apply sooner I didn't know how it came about oh you didn't you just enjoyed it I mean you can't look things up could you in those days it's not like there's an internet no everything's available of course yeah yeah I hadn't thought of that so Tim Booktailer and Bill Oddy see something in you they must have done I mean they wouldn't put me in they were not done what did you do at the audition what did you we did the parody of the Good Woman of Sex I think we you know the cabaret we'd done I'd written we'd talk in yeah and they knew you'd written it did they as well as I guess they did so the other two fellas slink away yeah because they weren't really built for comedy but you were apparently yes and you begin now to flex these muscles the first script they give me yeah written by John Cleese gosh who couldn't be in the Pembroke Smoker because he wasn't in Pembroke College okay he dined every night in Pembroke with Tim and Bill right because he hated downing okay and he was studying law which is extremely boring yeah and so but he was very funny he was the star of that year's Footlights show right and he came to see me with Humphrey Barkley on my in the Pembroke Smoker and afterwards they were very encouraging so you must join the Footlights and I said what's that and they said, oh, it's this comedy club.

34:48And when I went there, that was a complete wonderful world because they had their own bar. They had ladies who give you lunch. You had little lunch tables for about 12 and 6, you know, so it was very nice. And you were always around people writing and performing comedy and that was fascinating. And now you really are beginning to think. No, no, you're learning about the trade, what's the skill of this. And I remember picking up a John Cleese sketch in the club and reading it and it was a headmaster sketch. It was really unfunny to read. But when he did it, it was like, right, shut up, you, get it, right, out the wind.

35:22And it was like, so it was how it's done. The structure has to be there, but it was how it's performed. It's everything. And same with Nudge Nudge. I sent that to Ronnie Barker. Did you? And they returned it. Gosh. There's no jokes in it. No. If you read it out, it's your wife that goes, it's your wife that goes, does she go, does she go, I bet she, I bet she, know what I mean? Out there. and it came back to python it's one of the first things i read for them good lord yeah and they said oh that's in so were you still at cambridge when you sent that to ronnie barker no no so we've just want to just get in my chronology you've jumped ahead a bit but the way you spoke then eric was was as if you were bringing quite a forensic approach to comedy it was as if you were lifting the you really wanted to if it was a car you're wanting to know how it worked well i I think the first year, you're just seeing what's going on.

36:13And they have a Footlights review at the end of the summer. Yes. And that was brilliant that year. Tim McTaylor, Bill Ardick, John Cleese. I think Graham, he had been the year before he'd gone down to be a doctor. But it went to the West End for seven months. And so I was in Berlin. I got a telegram given to me by the Footlights, the Pembroke players. They said, we've got a telegram for you. What have you been? I didn't even know I was coming to Berlin. We were hitchhiking around, you know. And we had to take a bus through Berlin. And we hadn't seen anybody for three weeks. And when we got to Berlin, President Kennedy visited the next day.

36:49Wow. So I was there and saw Ischbeen Ein Berliner. Really? 1963, yeah. It's quite a summer. Extraordinary, isn't it? It is. And then they said, return immediately to Cambridge for the... We're going to Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Festival. And I got the Bill Oddy roles. Because he'd gone on to do something else? No, they were all in the West End. Oh, I see. They couldn't fulfil their obligation. Right. at the Edmer Festival. And how did you perform? How did you do? It was fantastic. Yeah. We were on dinner jackets, you know. I did old Bill's songs, you know, which were wonderful. Great lyrics. Are you feeling gears now inside you that you didn't know you had?

37:26Are you moving up layers? Are you moving up levels? Yeah, I mean, you don't know what you're facing. Of course you don't. But when you get there, Humphrey Barkley did, because he was in the show too, and he played the Cleese role, so I played sketches with him. I was with Graham Gordon good pals and he was president after Timbrook Taylor and then he left and I was president in my final year I mean there is an extraordinary kind of meshing isn't it of all of these all of those people in different shows I'm sorry I'll read that again doing this and that and then and then yeah I don't want to jump ahead for you well because you became president of the Footlights yourself?

38:08Yes. And that was kind of funny. You had a pink costume and a pink jacket. But I did something kind of I'm proud of still to this day. Because there were no women allowed in the Footlights. I said, this is nuts. You're trying to find people, girls for the review and they're not allowed to come and try out and who's any good or bad. Because you had to perform a live show with your material you've written. So you do get a laugh or not a laugh. So I said, no, we must to have women in the footlights. And all these dons cried and said, oh, no, we've been 100 yards. But it was great. And the first woman through the door, Jermaine Greer.

38:46Good Lord. With Clive James, actually. Is that right? But he couldn't join as a woman, obviously. We let him in as an Australian. And this meant a lot to you for a whole heap of reasons, including principles. I mean, including there being some natural injustice about women not being allowed. Or was it entirely pragmatic? A bit of both. Yeah. So the change for Cambridge was in the middle of my second term, the Beatles came through. Now, suddenly, they're all wearing tweed jackets and leather pads, and then suddenly you're wearing little leather jackets and beetle jackets, and it's kind of cool, you know, and your hair's going a little bit.

39:22And so we were very much into girls, you know, women. So many of us, you wanted them in the club. but basically because you can't find funny women out of nowhere. They have to go through the same process you went through, learning and try this and try that. And so I'm very proud of that, actually. I think it was about 20 years before the colleges did. Is that right? Yes. Gosh. No, no, a bit radical. I've been on the Older Marston March, though. The CND? Yeah, CND. Okay. So where did that come from? A friend of mine was, you know, I mean, he had gone ahead on to King's College, London. no uh yeah what's the other university lse yeah and so um no not the lse that's the school of economics thank you ucl yeah um so we went you know he'd gone down and i it was fun to go down and you're part of this sort of movement that's the word the move because i was just thinking you're looking very you're very forward looking because you don't realize it necessarily at the time but you are you've already got one foot in the future at this point yeah i think what's happening is um after the war there's nobody in any jobs ahead of you because they're all in the arm in the ref so there's all these emptiness that you don't know about that's there and the television's happening now um tv writers and you can write for radio so that that becomes something we were all watching uh that was the week that was every saturday night and so it was all about satire and um yeah so it's 1965 you graduate and you think i'm going to try and get into that world and i i went with john cameron who we'd been playing songs with and we did cabaret at the blue angel and i said never work with a pianist ever again at cabaret because if it's going well they're going that that and it's going badly they're hiding behind

41:17so i i drifted into repertory theater yes because richard air is one of our peer group you know was directing oh what a lovely war right and that was the best production i ever saw in my life at stratford east with joan littlewood extraordinary production brilliant these names and i know your whole life has been like this because but you don't know their names no i know you don't and well you do by the time you're at the house in provence which the new book is about and you've got people like Robin, everyone from Gerard Durrell to Robin Williams coming to visit. Yes, but the French didn't know who he was.

41:49I suppose not, but you did. So your whole life. Well, I'd only just seen him. I saw him in Soho at the comic strip. Okay. And he was just brilliant. Yeah. And I was introduced to him and I loved him at once because he's so funny and so fast. Yes. And him and his wife came to France and stayed with us. So it was an off-the-cuff invitation, that first one. I think you had a similar experience with George Harrison, didn't you, when you felt like you'd known each other all your lives. Yes, he changed my life, though. Yes. Yes, because I was going through a breakup of my first marriage, and I'm a bit depressed.

42:18He said, well, gee, I'll be going to die. And 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. Gosh. And he lived with that and died with that, because I was with him at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just reflecting on this, the orbit that you've moved in throughout your life, beginning at such an early age. As soon as you got out of Wolverhampton, you're essentially in your peer of some of the most creative people on the planet. Whom you discover. Yes, of course. I could have been studying English, reading all the books and be a teacher.

42:55Yes. But I trig that that's not a way to spend a lot of your time. And also you have this great ability to work out where the best times were being had. I think that's a survival instinct. And if you're born in a war, and I was going to say that what was changing was a sea shift in England, where it went from rationing, no television, no fun, to this enormous renaissance that happened after the war, where everything, art, photography, design, fashion, architecture, everything changed. And comedy also changed, you know, because the people who were going around on musical, they did one week and their show was over.

43:36yeah so and you loved all of it you loved all of this you know you love the music you love the comedy some of the style the whole the whole um speaking to you yes exactly that i get that and i think for people younger than you who never quite understood elvis for example that idea that you just described as the sense that he was talking directly to you is is universal and timeless isn't it and you know who ended up being a fan of mine go on he called everybody squire from my Nudge and Nudge Sketch, Elvis. That's just extraordinary. Isn't it extraordinary? How did you find that out? I met his girlfriend, Linda Thompson.

44:13Yeah. And she said, Elvis would have been your stalker. I said, what? And I'd heard a little bit about this in somebody's book, but we did Nudge and Nudge Sketch on television for 20 years. So he learned that. They called everybody Squire. And then he took the boys to see Holy Grail at night three or four times. I don't think they were sober. That's just insane. Absolutely. insane i managed to say my life and that that was really freaky because like whole life going back to look at you of course of course and he was a rebellious figure you see at first of course 16 year old of course of course um i mean we're approaching the bit now where where people know much of of your story but tell me about those sort of first incursions into success if you like when when things landed when things didn't get sent back to you when you began to gather a little bit of momentum before the five of you kind of joined forces well i started it in rep and i they kept me on for a thing called one for the pot right which is horrible and i was playing a small character i would write for i'm sorry i'll read that again in the dressing room okay and then a guy came down one night said hello eric how's it going so it's all right i got it he said would you mind joining me on stage he'd come off the stage living in empty because he figured out by who didn't come I mean, who was out?

45:31And I thought, oh, I'm not cut out for this. And so I went back to London. I started to write for, I'm sorry, I'll read that again, three guineas a minute. And then I pulled into the Frost world for 10 guineas a minute. And then I got to write for the Frost Report. I must have been 21. And, you know, we won the Golden Rose of Montreux. Marty Feldman was a script editor. Yeah, I knew that. And there were Goulton and Simpson. Barry Cryer was a wonderful mentor to me. Do you know that you're, again, it's another part of your life where you're in the company of absolute greatness. Yes. But you do know that by now.

46:05Yes, and we're the young ones. Michael Penn and Terry Jones were all writing. You were all doing the same thing. They used to write together. You used to write alone. I think I started writing with Graham. Okay. But it didn't work. I tried, I think, writing with Timbrook Taylor. I don't like talking in the mornings. No, fair enough. You couldn't do my job. Well, you couldn't do my job either. You've got to write it first. Okay, got it. And so that's where you sort of work out what you're going to write and think. But after that, when we were in the Frost Report, it's only golden. It's 1966. Yes.

46:37I went with Bill Oddy to the World Cup final. We win. Yeah. Scarily. Just at the AEO. Amazing. Yeah. You're like Forrest Gump. It's like you're airing the background at all of these extraordinary events and magical moments. It's true. There's certainly a Zellig-like quality. Zellig is a better example, I think. and then somebody has the idea of putting you all together or you gravitate towards each other we do a kids show right Humphrey Barkley asked me to write a kids show he's got the Bonsar Dog Doodah Band he's got David Jason he's got Denise Coffey will I write it you've done it again haven't you these names just kind of so I said I will do it if you bring in Michael Payne and Terry Jones right so we start to write this show yes and then Gilliam comes along in the second season right We win an award for our comedy show, and adults are watching it because it's on at 5.25.

47:32Yes. And we have the Bonzos on every week. Crazy. There were 17 of them, I think, when they first came. They ended up being about seven. That's a commercially more viable. But Vivian Stancher was a standout hit of that. Wonderful, funny man. And Neil Innes is the pianist. Who you collaborated and you went on to do lots of things with in the future. Eventually, yes. But not for a while. so that that then that that then morphs into python does it or yes pretty much we've been offered itv comes and said we love your show we'll give you an adult show nine o 'clock for 45 minutes i said wow thank you very much and they said well unfortunately we don't have a studio for about a year and a half oh okay so if you wait and we'll do that and then we were there and then john cleese came with us graham chapman and they said uh because he was he was a star and he was in uh Frost Report yeah yeah and a big star by then right and so he said BBC have given me a late night show on a Sunday night I'd like you to I think he's trying to get hold of Michael because Graham was starting to drink a bit right and but we came with because we were together because we got a show offered so we were the creative element and so that's that's how it came just like that and we did it in the meanwhile while we're waiting for our big show how funny and the big show never happened no because we were doing for Python.

48:51Well, of course. ITV were furious. I bet they were. Let it go. I bet they learned not to give people 18 months off before putting them in the studio. I bet they never made that mistake again. How quickly did it go bonkers, Python? No, not at all at the beginning. I didn't think so. Because I used to play football in Hyde Park with Bill Hardy. I remember the first show and they said, that's a really weird show you did last time. Yeah, yeah, it is a bit odd. Yeah, sure. And then the next thing they said, actually, I like that kind of weird show you're doing. It's so odd. and then they really began to like it.

49:21How interesting. But only people were playing football with or going to the pub with. And then, so it was about two years before I put Pythons on stage in Coventry and we did three late night shows and we finally saw our audience and they were completely mad. Right. Wonderful. Phonetic. And I think they met themselves too. Yes. And they were all dressed up and they got, you know, Gumby hats on and they know all the words. It starts at midnight, so a bit smashed anyway. Sure. It was huge, huge. And from then on, we toured England. And this was like flying. I mean, this was... It's rock and roll.

49:57It's rock and roll. You're on the road. It's rock and roll. Very much for Graham. It's really rock and roll. And then they took us immediately to Canada. We went across Canada. At the end of which, John left, because he didn't want to do a fourth series. Okay. And we went on to California. And we were on Sunday on The Tonight Show. And they didn't laugh at all. It was hilarious. Then we won a show called The Midnight Special. Yes. We did Nudge and things like that. That's where Elvis found it. It's a late-night rock and roll show hosted by the Bee Gees, the one we were on. How bizarre. How bizarre.

50:28We didn't meet them, but they were there. We felt a little contemptuous of rock and roll, I have to say. I can understand that. We've read a book or two. Well, exactly, yes. But we're all the same generation. I'm born usually the same year.

50:45Evening, buyer's remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Uh, sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no... No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice? Ugh, I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyer's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. the work remains um incredibly popular and incredibly important amazingly so it is 40 years later yes i don't remember laughing at 40 year old comedy no but i yeah the reason is because it's not topical we followed satire so we couldn't do satire so it's all generic comedy you know characters and middle class and you know mothers and they mothers particularly oh hello that old mother stuff of course it's quite bits of it oh we're back to the same thing again because it's subversive but at the same time bits of it are music hall men dressing up as women that's where I first saw it Mrs.

51:58Shifflewick of course somebody called Over the Garden Wall she's got your best Les Dawson again isn't it he got it off you he got it no he got it off that person he got it off them as well yeah no more than got it got it yeah of course of course um and and everybody knows now that the tv morphs into films that there's gaps and and this is where george harrison comes into your life because it looked as if life of brian wasn't going to be made at all i think the money had fallen through i met him though promoting holy grail in la and he sat me on the shoulders i've been looking for you because I'd written a sketch about a pop singer being busted by a policeman who brought out a bag and he puts a brown paper, oh watch this he said you just put that there, he says no I know it's yours and he opens it up and he says blimey, sandwiches, whatever did I give the wife and I think they cut that and George thought I was talking directly to him because the same thing had happened to him in his show or something like that so he thought he'd somehow read his mind or like hitchhiked on his experience.

53:05But they were laughing. Of course. All rock and roll people laughed at comedy. They laughed at, I'm sorry, I read it again. They laughed at our show. So, because they're on the buses all the time. Yeah, of course they are. They got to make each other laugh, haven't they? So people don't quite understand. Usually they found me. Got it. Got it. Got it. So this extraordinary orbit of people that you've spent your whole life with and who pop up all the time in your new book, Tale in Provence, they're seeking you out because they want to tell you how much they love the work that you've done yeah i think comedians are very popular yes and and they find you and you know they have they have women and drugs and money and they say very generous of all three you know so and laughter is the one thing that you can't buy isn't it you need to have funny people around in order to have laughter and everybody loves laughing all the beatles were funny that's the reason they were successful in america it's the reason why the films work as well yeah i mean to varying degrees yeah But Hard Day's Night is still wonderful.

54:02It's an absolute classic. So when did you buy the house in Provence? 1971. And was it conscious even then that you wanted somewhere to go? Because we're back to escape and prison. But Python never felt like a prison, I don't think. Eventually. So we're back to prison and escape. Absolutely. Because you're on film sets and you've got to do this and that. And so I do think subconsciously that's a way. It's escape and prison again. I think somewhat. You're escaping. It wasn't not prison. No, I know. But it is a form of constraint, selfish constraint. We have to stay there. I could have run away from school.

54:37Yes, of course you could. But you had no idea in 1971 that this house was going to run through your life like Blackpool through a stick of rock. No, I didn't. But it has. Yes, it became my... I was so happy there. Yes. You know immediately when you're happy. Yes, you do. Whenever I get there, I start smiling. Yes. I'm walking around the land going... Because it's beautiful land. It's wonderful. wonderful olive trees and we have our own olive oil yeah so it's lovely and it speaks to something inside you that nothing else had quite well nature's very comforting and then the universe the stars were very very comforting so for people who've read the the sort of biography um what are they going to find in eidel in provence that is well it's about somebody finding a means of escape i suppose uh i think that was the title of graham green's biography ways of escape and then um so i think everybody has that same sort of thing uh and so you know we find i had it for eight years without electricity yes i saw so um we made this little place to find our own waters 80 meters down the well where did this come from because there's nothing in anything we've discussed so far that paints you as that man is there or is that think of a little subversive okay so again it's kind of like i'm going to do my you're plowing your own furrow i started to have a bit of migraine migraine filming just before Python and I now looking back think ah there was a lot of tension in various times John left for example didn't do the 4 series no and then we very smartly well Michael wanted to do it and I said no this is not working I mean you know because the balance was everything accidental it's alchemy or self discovery I don't know why or how but something was missing so we were luckily writing the Holy Grail we'd done a film yeah Well, sketches was boring.

56:27And so that became what brought John back and what brought the group back and what we're quite good at for a while. But we had no money for Life of Brian. When we opened The Holy Grail in New York, they asked me, they said, what's your next film? I said, Jesus Christ, Lust for Glory. That's brilliant.

56:48Was that out of nowhere? Yeah. Oh, that's just incredible. That's the thing I don't know where that comes from. I think it's a lack of sentiment. We're back to being in class, aren't we? Making the boys laugh. It's the same. I think so. That, again, is a survivally kind of instinct. It's a skill. It's like table tennis. Yeah, of course. You're a very good backer. Yeah, that's a very modest way of putting it, but it's probably true as well. You don't know any different. That just happens when your mouth opens. That kind of thing comes out. And then you quite like the reaction. Yeah, of course you do.

57:17Not the beating. No, no, no. But you become kind of... I think you don't know that you're more popular because of that. you don't know you're more popular because of that but you are and that becomes who you are ultimately but you're still the other person the person that wants a place in provence where he doesn't have to be i've got to get away got to get away yeah got to get away yeah because it's a love story this book yes isn't it a love story for provence yeah and uh it's from my my second wife i mean from my first wife too i mean she gave me a son and my second wife a daughter and i've been with tanya 49 years you know i gave that woman two of the best years of her life

57:59and that's an interesting thing you just spotted that i mean it comes you got it's a backhand again there we go there we go and it's a i mean it's unrecognizable now from from the plot that you bought as you say you've dug down into i mean it's a lovely story because it grows doesn't it yes as you turn the pages the house grows and and your life changes it goes down unexpected paths and and yet the one recurring theme from the age of 19 onwards is that truly extraordinary people gravitate towards you i don't know they gravitate i would i audition for them don't forget i came into their life at the very beginning yeah okay and then you know john cleese and everything are very nice to me because you're the new intake sure and they're leaving yeah they have a freshers week they try and get people in i never heard of it so i didn't go near.

58:54Okay, later then you just become If you're good at it. Right. And then you learn that very quickly. I'm reading about Art Garfunkel pulling up at your house on his motorbike and stuff like that. I mean, that's gravitating. Yeah, I knew him already then. I know. And Paul Simon came about three times. The most happy time he came, he'd been divorced from Carrie Fisher. They were about there perfectly happily divorced. together yeah well this is just extraordinary yeah yeah well I loved his work you see I loved his music and I stood next to him in a queue outside an Elton John concert and you know Elton Elton was inside getting getting flowers anyway it wasn't his concert he was attending but he was in the dressing room we're waiting outside you know I'm next to Paul and he goes by the way I do love your music and he says I love your comedy you do that don't you that's like a sketch sketched yeah it is when we became you know great powers you have a great capacity for friendship eric don't you i think so yes that's a wonderful thing i think it is i think it's one thing maybe you learn from boarding school who's your friends and who's not yeah yeah who's gonna hit you yes and who's gonna who's gonna laugh who's gonna make you laugh as well who who does make you laugh or who has made you laugh the most over the year i would say peter cook and billy connolly right Billy's amazing Peter was extraordinary I was in a movie with him it was great fun Yellowbeard which movie was that?

1:00:29Yellowbeard it was a wonderful time I loved him he was very funny we went up the Nile actually John Cleese took an extra position up the Nile Peter Cook was on it and Stephen Fry who writes the foreword for the new book yes he does he's very nice not the foreword I write that he writes a nice blurb he writes the blurb yes exactly that um we're almost out of time i mean have you is there is there anything else in the lot of what of what anything else you want to do i mean in life yeah or in work i was on tour in scandinavia and i did my one-man show up there and i thought i can't do this anymore i'm gonna die once you're just knackered absolutely it's the energy you don't have yeah but you still have extraordinary amounts of energy but not over the long time to our show and then next you're going travel and somewhere else i thought i don't want to do this anymore it's just i can't do it like this but i i always want to write so because that's the way you find out what you think yes and you can do it on your own yeah absolutely and it's every morning you know it's lovely you go then oh six o 'clock and you know it's nice and oh i'm working on that oh that's okay well you know you've got various things in various stages you still love it don't you i do i absolutely do so i've got a couple of things i like to write and and you've got in conclusion you've also got that that big big big health scare a few years ago that means that every day i think you've said yourself every day is extra time for me it is totally i had pancreatic cancer in 2019 and the survival rate at the time was one percent tell just final story if you don't mind why you thought the doctor was joking when he told you that you had pancreatic cancer why i went to him well he's an old friend of mine who's a doctor a doctor a family doctor he loves a preventative medicine and when i was writing a thing called death the musical i wanted i said how do i get rid of he went to the doctor's game i said how do i get rid of character very quickly he said pancreatic cancer every time you may only have three weeks i said that's absolutely perfect and i went on carrying away this plot about a guy writing a musical about death the musical and he's discovers he's got death he's dying i thought that was really funny then about 10 15 years later i'm going we're looking at the screen i said what what's that?

1:02:38He said, it's pancreatic cancer. And I laughed. Of course you did. Now the bloke writing the book about the bloke writing a story about the death. Yeah, it's got it. So it was kind of, and I was very fortunate because he's a great doctor and he spotted it from a blood test, which is very early. And he put me into a great surgeon, you know, who whipped it out and I'm still here. But it is, you know, you think, oh my gosh, every day isn't, and that's what George was always trying to teach, every day. Got it. He's in Buddhism anyway, really yes of course yes it is because you don't know your moment you're gone you know so yeah I learned a lot from that and I try and live by that Idol in Provence by Eric Idol is available now in all good bookshops and the bad ones

1:03:28Eric Idol thank you thank you very much I enjoyed talking with you

1:03:34this has been a global production

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