Jeremy Clarkson admitted in his Sunday Times column this week to an “encyclopaedic knowledge” of Monty Python sketches which was regarded, he admitted, as “a bit sad”.
We can be sad together, then, for I share Jeremy’s failing. It must be an age thing.
The sketch beginning “I would like to buy a licence for my pet fish Eric” is one of my favourites for recitation. Another is Eric Idle’s travel agent scene, which Jeremy mentioned on Sunday.
This begins with Carol Cleveland, as a secretary, asking Idle if he’d like to “come upstairs” before twigging that he has actually come to book a break.
More than 30 years ago, while Ms Cleveland was appearing in a show at the Playhouse, she agreed to attend the Oxford Press Ball as one of our guests. As a committee member, I escorted her. I now recall with shame how I encouraged her to join me in a recitation of the sketch. The marvellous, tolerant woman did not biff me one but happily obliged.
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