No Naughty Bits: How smutty British childish humour took on corporate America and won

Read my guest blog post on TheRealGilliamFan:

No Naughty Bits Press Night #montypython #terrygilliam #michaelpalin

A very short and very loud clip of Terry Gilliam gesticulating a lot

It was a total celeb-fest! In other words, to use a Jonathan Ross term, the celeb/civilian quotient was rather high!

Nigel Franklin talking to Terry Gilliam still gesticulating

In no particular order, on Tues 13 Sept, in addition to Terry Gilliam himself, the Hampstead Theatre was graced by:

• Emma Thompson
• David Gilmour
• Steve Punt
• Larry Lamb
• Alexei Sayle
• Greg Wise
• Maureen Lipman
• Amy Rosenthal
• Simon Jones
• Nancy Lewis-Jones
• Tim McInnerny
• Alison Steadman
• Maryam d'Arbo
• Hugh Hudson
• Robert Hands
• Christopher Biggins

I had such fun that night - one of the most amazing and memorable nights of my life. Thank you SO much to all the lovely staff of the Hampstead Theatre who looked after me so well.

I gave the author of http://therealgilliamfan.blogspot.com over in the US a bit of a shock during the interval. I called her up, then handed my phone to Terry Gilliam. She blogged about the experience here: I Just Told Terry Gilliam "I Love You!!".

In addition to chatting with Terry, I was very pleased to be able to see Simon Jones again. He is SUCH a lovely man. So warm, kind and friendly. I had to talk about his "This is my receipt for your receipt" scene in Brazil, obviously. I also met his wife, Nancy Lewis-Jones, who I think was very tickled for having just seen herself on stage in 1975. And I met their charming son, Tim Jones, who took this picture of his dad and I.

John Wood (me) with Simon Jones

As if that wasn't enough, I ALSO had a chat with David Gilmour. I told him that the album Wish You Were Here was a major part of my school years and that it is just an incredible album. I've got an idea I'm not the first to tell him that, but I'm really glad I did anyway. It sort of completes the circle, and it's not every day you get the opportunity to do that sort of thing now is it?

Press Night Photos/Reviews

1. Wooller.com
2. Broadway World
3. The Arts Desk
4. The Stage
5. What's on Stage?
6. The Independent
7. This is London
8. The Guardian
9. Benchmark.dreamhosters.com
10. The Telegraph
11. The Financial Times
12. The Financial Times - Arts Extra
13. The Metro
14. British Theatre Guide
15. Hampstead Theatre News
16. BBC Radio Four's Front Row
17. Variety
18. Pythonesque
19. West End Whingers
20. (As Yet Unnamed) London Theatre
21. Theatre Voice
22. Wall Street Journal

The Real Gilliam Fan Blog

• No Naughty Bits: How smutty British childish humour took on corporate American and won
• I just told Terry Gilliam "I love you!!"
• First Look: Hampstead Theatre's "No Naughty Bits"

Other links

• Hampstead Theatre on Fousquare
• Hampstead Theatre's Twitter feed
• Twitter search for "No Naughty Bits"
• Twitter search for "Hampstead Theatre"
• Hampstead Theatre's Facebook Page

The last page of the script, signed by Nancy Lewis-Jones and Terry Gilliam

First Look: Hampstead Theatre's "No Naughty Bits" on TheRealGilliamFan blog

Read my guest post over on TheRealGilliamFan blog about Hampstead Theatre's "No Naughty Bits" which re-imagines Monty Python's landmark 1975 U.S. case concerning the unauthorized edits by the ABC TV Network of episodes of the 4th Python series.

John Wood (me) with Sam Alexander who plays Terry Gilliam

Filming Location Update: Ministry of Information in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil"

A still from Brazil with action taking place in front of the left chimney

The former Croydon Power Station was chosen as the location for the Ministry of Information in Terry Gilliam's 1985 movie Brazil.

The power station had been decommissioned and was awaiting demolition at the time of filming. The main building is, today, IKEA Croydon and its car park is where the cooling towers stood (the interior of one of which was used as the location for Information Retrieval's torture chamber). The power station's two chimneys were spared demolition and have been retained as a local landmark.

I regularly visited what was the power station as it was being demolished in the 1980s. Inside the main building, I remember seeing acres of twisted metal, and I also remember seeing the pavement that had been laid for the filming in front of the two chimneys. The enormous steps leading to the Ministry of Information's main entrance in the film had, unfortunately, already been demolished by the time I got there.

Left chimney today

Back view from 'within' the power station of the right chimney

Right chimney, top view

Me standing at the bottom of the right chimney

Right chimney, bottom view

Right chimney, taken from the road

Left chimney, taken from the road. The main entrance to the Ministry of Information would have been to the left of the lamp post.

A still from Brazil: Criterion Collection showing the right chimney

A still from Brazil: Criterion Collection showing where the main steps leading to the entrance of the Ministry of Information were constructed.

Croydon Power Station in the 1950s

The Day I Met Tim Vine

With Tim Vine in an Internet café near Victoria Station

I needed to go online, so I popped into the nearest Internet café only to find, to my amazement, sitting at one of the terminals was the very funny comedian Tim Vine!

Being one who is not backwards in coming forwards, I decided to sit at the terminal right next to his; I had every intention of saying hello, but rather than just going, "Hello Tim", I thought I'd do something a little more original.

I knew he used Twitter, and I assumed that since he was online, he'd very likely be on Twitter at that moment, so I decided to tweet to him without saying a word to see if he noticed. It worked a tweet treat! Here's my tweet:

https://twitter.com/uptone/status/95872343502622720

I waited a few minutes and then he suddenly looked to his right and stared right at me with wide eyes! It was a very special moment and we both had a good laugh!

He told me the reason he had gone into the Internet café was to find somewhere he could buy some plastic fruit for the show he was doing that night.