Sydney Thursday February 18th

A glorious Sunset is casting golden light across the most famous harbour in the world, darkening the arc of the famous old bridge, and silhouetting the improbable clam shells of the most famous building in the world, the unlikely Sydney Opera House. Across the bay in which we are skimming at great speed in a big yellow water taxi, the sun is making fiery orange oblongs in the windows of a clutch of bungalows on a headland. We are heading to dinner at Catalina in Watsons Bay in the classic Sydney Harbour. The old city has changed a lot since I first came here 40 years ago, high rises everywhere and hardly a patch of waterfront with no new construction, dwarfing the older and more elegant waterside homes. North Sydney is a tall stand of highly coloured neon lit buildings clustered on a steep hill across the bridge. And there tucked in its armpit it is good to see the slightly menacing clown face of Luna Park, which with its current manifestation of neon white light rays has survived the many threats to tear it down. Its wide slightly menacing open mouthed clown has survived many incarnations. When I first came it was by Martin Sharp one of the first people I met here.

John is fairly silent. We have been talking all day to the Press and TV and Radio. But the warm wind is blowing away the cobwebs and we are looking forward to our dinner.
“Are you the suckling pig?” asks the waitress
“Please don’t call him pig “ I say.
The mood is good, the food excellent and our hosts, our Promoter Adrian and his son Sebastian, are kindly and considerate. We dine on a terrace facing the darkling bay, but there is no wind and it is perfectly lovely.
“Ah there’s Jupiter” I say, watching a bright light in the sky above the city.
“Actually that’s Quantas AF 34 to Melbourne” says our Promoter pointing his I phone at it. Imagine an App which identifies every plane in the sky!
Later on the way home we do see Jupiter rising and it is magnificent and huge.
“There’s that Qantas flight again” says Sebastian gently mocking me.
I’m happy to be mocked, full of fine food and finer wine.

The day started at dawn as I looked Eastwards across the bay to the heads of the harbour.. From my high eyrie perch on the 33rd floor I can the blackened silhouette of the Opera House, which looks like a clutch of nuns from this direction. I played there two nights in 2007 in Not The Messiah. This time we’ll be playing at the lovely old State Theatre, but not for almost a month.

It’s 7 a.m. and the unmistakable tall figure of the now white haired John enters the lobby. He is looking fit and well after ten weeks in Mustique, though he has just come in from bone freezing Minnesota from a speech and then via Dallas to Sydney on what is billed as the longest flight in the world, sixteen hours.

He gives me a big kiss and a hug and envelopes Diane O’Neill our inexhaustible publicist with a a big bear hug and we head off to Channel 7. He will rib her mercilessly all day. They have worked together before and she tolerates his abuse with a wry smile and a nudge in the direction she wants us to go next.

We are on Sunrise first. Live on the breakfast show with Kochie and Samantha. Kochie a tall man who will later perform a surprisingly effective silly walk, says afterwards it’s the best interview he’s ever done. We behave suitably inappropriately. It’s surprisingly easy to be funny next to John and we’ve had some experience to say the least. They are all happy, and then three quick breakfast radio interviews, one live to Melbourne and we are heading back to the hotel where various camera crews have taken over the Executive Club and are setting up. Even radio interviews these days have cameras, which pop up on their web sites.

We speak to the Daily Telegraph, ABC late night TV, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, ABC Radio, Radio National…, every fifteen minutes we are shuttled to a new set up and a new questioner.

Quite good discussions break out, perhaps the best being a radio show which is a music show which discusses the music of Python. It’s intelligent and fresh and I don’t remember discussing this before. It is enjoyable and fascinating, and some of the other journalist cluster round to listen in. It’s almost a shame to stop. Radio is still the best for talk.

John demands people ask us ruder questions in the shows. He’s tired of the boring old ones, and indeed we do chuck away all those that ask how we got the name Monty Python. He wants more and nastier ones….

From this morning’s hilarious Sunrise Show he has already been attacked by The Daily Fail for touching a blonde woman. Why do they bother? I ask him why he doesn’t just ignore them. He quotes Mark Twain which is impressive and then adds “Besides I rather enjoy it. They are such dicks they always make mistakes.” Today they have identified his daughter as his ex- wife (deceased these two years) etc etc. He suggests the writer had had too much whiskey, a tipple he is apparently over fond of.

Our schedule promises we’ll be done by 12.25 but it’s an hour later before we finish the last of them and head downstairs for a lunch. I’m starving. It’s a couple of glasses of white wine before I calm down. I’m heading for a nap as we have one more show to do at five thirty, an as-live interview down the line to Melbourne for The Project, which has a panel of four and is hilarious.

The main question of the day has been political correctness and its limitations on comedy.
I’m reminded of a couplet from Spamalot which didn’t make the final lyric but of which I was fond.

Your political correction
May give Lenin an erection
But I’m sad to bring you this sad news
You won’t succeed on Broadway, you just don’t succeed on Broadway
If you don’t have any Jews.

I think it was David Hyde Pierce who came up with the delightful alternative
There’s a very small percentile
Who enjoy a dancing gentile…..

Nobody remembers that Political Correctness is Marxist thinking. What on earth is incorrect thinking anyway?
John skirts the lurking dangers of this loaded question, while managing to gently stick the boot in.

As we are leaving lunch the tall unmistakeable figure of Camilla Cleese comes across. Sadly she won’t be joining us for dinner as she has two stand up gigs tomorrow.

An email from our Promoter proves the value of all this. We sold 1500 tickets yesterday and now only the second house at Brisbane next week still has a ton of tickets to sell.
I suggest we announce a special attraction to entice the Brisvegans from their homes on a Sunday night.
John suggests a stripper.
I suggest a semi naked roller skating model……

We’ll see.
Over to you Brisvegans….

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