A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman Page #4

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This is hardly even partly true

in retrospect.

It's just that I remember once or twice

thoughts of men's bodies

creeping into my mind while in coitus.

I decided that I should do

some clinical tests on myself,

so whenever I went in a taxicab,

tube, train or bus,

I looked at each passer-by

and tried to tell myself honestly

which ones I would like

to go to bed with.

And the ratio of boys to girls

was something like seven to three,

which puts me clearly

on the homosexual side of the scale,

as suggested in the Kinsey Report.

Look. He says he's on tour

with something called

Cambridge Circus, a revue.

The Queen Mother told him,

you know,

and as Her Majesty was telling Graham,

New Zealand is such a beautiful place.

She said he really had to go and see it.

It's by royal command, really.

A trip to New Zealand

and America

made me more broad-minded

about myself.

Immediately after qualifying, I gave up

medicine and became a raging poof.

But no mincing.

A butch one with a pipe.

Graham, taxi's here for the BBC!

Thank you very much indeed.

Tonight:
class.

Some people say it's disappearing,

but if modern advertising...

Come in.

Come in, Thompson. Nice to see you.

It's time we had a little chat.

- Thank you, sir.

- Good.

Don't sit on the floor, Thompson.

Sit on the chair.

How are you, Thompson?

- Fine, sir.

- Good. Splendid. You look well.

I was talking this morning to Miss Evans

about your Latin verse.

The prose is all right, but verse is weak.

You've got to do something about it.

- Yes, sir.

- Hmm.

Thompson, have you been shot?

Yes, sir. Just a bit.

Well, who shot you?

A master or a boy?

- A boy, sir.

- Oh, good.

Hi, guys. Hello.

Super show tonight. Super.

Look, I can't stop.

Got a flight to catch.

I was thinking you boys ought

to write a film script.

It'd be super, absolutely super.

I'm sending you off to Spain to write

the script. It'll be great fun.

Anyway, I've got to go.

They're calling my flight. Bye.

Super.

Well, now we're here, the first thing

we should do is examine all the beaches

to find out which will be the best place

to write a film set in London.

Well, it usually takes me two weeks

to get acclimatised

and I still haven't thrown off

this throat.

It is rather hot, isn't it?

I'm feeling a bit groggy myself.

Perhaps a couple of weeks' rest

might be a good idea.

But do you think we should?

I mean, David frost and all that.

- He has paid us, Graham.

- Yes, I suppose you're right.

Yes, well,

I'll probably be all right tomorrow.

Yes, right. That's fine. We'll start

tomonow, first thing in the morning.

Right. Yes, yes, yes.

Fine, then.

I'll sit in the shade with the typewriter

and you can sit out on the balcony

sunning yourself

and shout a few lines in, right?

Fine. Great.

Oh, bugger.

Graham, do you mind if we don't start

till the evening, actually?

I promised to take Connie out tomorrow.

She's only got a few more days here.

Bit awkward to get out of it now,

you know? Damn!

Fine by me.

We have done a synopsis of the film.

I wouldn't mind taking a bit of time off.

- We'll start on Friday, yes?

- Yes. Right.

Um... Be a bit noisy,

but we can shut ourselves away.

- Noisy?

- Well, there's the fiesta this weekend.

Lots of dancing, fireworks, wine

and that sort of thing.

Oh. I've never been to Spain before.

Haven't you?

Oh, well. You must, then.

You must go to the fiesta.

So let's have a drink.

That brings us to Monday.

We'll start on Monday.

No, Monday and Tuesday

are Connie's last two days

and I'd like to see her off on Wednesday,

so let's start Thursday.

Look, why don't we make it

two weeks?

Done.

I say...

Just look at that.

I spent the next two weeks

searching for something

that I knew was probably very sexy.

Super, boys, super.

Really super.

I look forward to reading

more than ten pages.

Ooh, got to fly- Bye!

Hello?

Who was that?

One of the painters.

It sounded like one of the painters

I've spoken to before.

Well, yes, it probably did a bit.

It's a bit late for painting, isn't it?

No, no. You just don't understand

London, mother.

This is not like Leicester.

For a whole year, I've lived in terror,

an almost Thorpean tenor,

of being found out for what I was.

A poof.

"F*** it," I thought.

"Why go through all this agony?"

I decided that I would invite my closest

friends to a party to meet David

and explain to them all

that I was a bit bent.

This was a coming-out party.

No, Graham, you don't understand.

I'm just very surprised.

Ever since I've known you,

you've played rugby, drank a lot of beer,

you smoked a pipe,

you wore a tweed suit and brogues

and this is not a standard gay profile.

Yes.

Ooh!

The other extraordinary reaction

was from Keith Moon,

who was quite stunned.

Obviously, he was quite young then,

but I had to explain to him

what it all meant,

that I actually did go to bed

with people of the same sex,

that it was quite fun and that we

actually loved each other.

It wasn't at all naughty.

Come in.

- Trouble at mill.

- Oh, no. What sort of trouble?

One of crossbeams

gone out of skew on treadle.

Pardon?

One of crossbeams

gone out of skew on treadle.

I don't understand.

One of the crossbeams

has gone out of skew on the treadle.

- But what on earth does that mean?

- I don't know.

Mr Wentworth just told me to come in

and say there was trouble at the mill.

I didn't expect a kind of

Spanish inquisition.

Suddenly I feel like digressing

for another moment about morality.

I intend to publish here for the first time

what I believe to be a missing portion

of the New Testament.

The papyrus manuscript,

translated here from the original Greek,

was discovered in 1979 by the author

at Auckland airport.

It was there, in transit to Sydney,

Australia, whiling away a few moments,

when the manuscript was given to him

by a Maori chieftain toilet attendant.

The first epistle of Paul the Apostle

to the New Zealanders, AD 59.

Chapter 1,

in which Paul castigated the

Antipodeans' empty showing of holiness,

of fornicators and abusers

of mankind,

of poverty and tolerance,

exorteth them

to beware of false prophets.

"Dear New Zealanders,

what is all this nonsense

"about certain of your number

kneeling down in front of crosses?

"That is naughty in the extreme.

"You've changed the glory

of an inconuptible god into an image.

"I understand that the very same people

collect together in churches

for the purpose of worship.

Who needs it?

"God doesn't. I've asked him. He's fed up

with it, especially the psalms.

"They give him a headache

and cause his teeth to strike together.

"Don't they realise their praise

is meaningless?

"Why can't they concentrate on being

better behaved towards one another

"and forget about this empty show

of holiness?

"He says, though don't quote me on this,

'They can stuff it up their arses.'

"He said that, not I.

"I, a mere mortal,

would not have put it quite like that.

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