This lovely Michael Palin story will put a smile on your face
Over to @GaspardWinckler for this lovely tale about Michael Palin.
It’s the bit about legging it around the auditorium that we like best.
1.
A longish thread. When I was in my early teens, the Belfast Festival invited Michael Palin to do a one-man show in the Arts Theatre. Fool that he was, he accepted, and my dad duly managed to get us a pair of tickets from somewhere. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
2.
This would have been, I think, November 1981 or 1982 – post Life of Brian, but pre-Meaning of Life. In a packed auditorium, the lights went down and Palin appeared on the stage, to rapturous applause. He ran through a selection of favourites from the Python LPs and shows…
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
3.
And then, after about 25 minutes of making me laugh so hard my entire upper body ached, he disappeared off into the wings. Five minutes later, he returned to the stage, looking a little less confident. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
4.
At a subsequent one-man show, he explained what had happened. Never having done a one-hander before, he'd prepared about an hour's worth of material – and, once the lights had gone up, he'd rattled through it in under half an hour. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
5.
Not having a watch, he'd returned to the wings to be greeted by a rather nervous looking stage manager. Was he, perhaps, planning another costume change? Was there an interval? No, he'd just completely run out of material. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
6.
So he came out and, with admirable honesty, informed the hose that he had no more stuff to do, so, rather than send everyone home after half an hour, perhaps we'd all like to go for a drink, and then come back into the theatre for a chat. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
7.
After an interval which saw quite a few people leave in a huff, the remaining audience filed back into the auditorium to be treated to possibly the best thing I have ever seen happen in a theatre. A 90-minute, no-holds-barred, free-for-all Q&A with Michael Palin. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
8.
There were reminiscences about Fliegender Zirkus (which was then entirely unknown in the UK) with a German-language performance of the Lumberjack Song; there were tales of catastrophic digestive mayhem on Life Of Brian; and most wonderful of all… /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
9.
…there was his race around the theatre. Some wag in the audience informed him that it was traditional for visiting speakers at Belfast Festival to undertake a lap of the venue, with the long-term record holder being Groucho Marks with 2m 56s. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
10.
So, Palin being Palin, he did it. He leapt from the stage and charged up the aisle, right to the back of the theatre, made his way along the seats to the far wall, then legged it back down to the stage. One minute forty seconds. /..
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
11.
He evidently enjoyed the experience, because he came back every two years for the rest of the 80s – and every single time, he did a circuit of the Arts Theatre to see how his speed was holding up.
— Joe McNally (@GaspardWinckler) January 7, 2018
Another reason why he’s our favourite Python.
On a cold, dull, frosty Monday, this thread has cheered me up no end. Thank you for sharing. Wonderful.
— The Git That Keeps On Giving (@JudgeRaymondo) January 8, 2018
Brilliant memories. Those shows were legendary. I saw him in the Arts Theatre a few times in subsequent years in the mid 80s when he kept up the tradition of an improvised second half including the lap around the theatre.
— Skippy Vinyls (@SkippyVinyls) January 8, 2018
I was at that show and remember the manic run around the theatre, priceless
— Colin Reid (@gcolinreid7) January 8, 2018
