Excerpt

RECORDING BEGINS IN MID-SENTENCE

STEVEN SODERBERGH: -- a distinct memory of when we met briefly in 1990 in Park City. They were showing some of your films and I saw Petulia and The Knack for the first time and I met you and Walter Shenson on the street for just a minute. You said, `It gets harder, you know.' I wasn't quite sure what you meant, and then for a while I thought I knew what you meant, and now I think you meant all sorts of things. I've thought of that comment a lot and what it meant to me seems to change every twelve months. Lately what it's come to mean is that it gets harder to maintain the course that you feel is your own when this course is obviously at odds with what else is going on, the kinds of work that people want to see.

RICHARD LESTER: My suspicion is my thought at that time was more to say when you made your first film, nothing you made had gone wrong.

SS: Right.

RL: And when you made your eighth film, a great part of eight films had gone wrong and you will always have that needling feeling in the back of your head: don't do that again. And you may do it again, but there will be something that will be inhibiting you in having that enthusiasm of opening the door and saying, `Let's go, lads! Over here with the forty!' The feeling that last time you did that it didn't quite come off and that's going to build and build.

SS: Yeah. I see what you mean.

RL: It has more to do with yourself than with what the industry will be doing to you.

SS: Now from what I know, this is the third time you've been through this, once with Andrew Yule and once with Neil Sinyard. Did you talk to Sinyard at length when he was doing his book?

RL: Not really, no. I think, more or less, he got on with it and picked up bits out of other interviews. I don't remember this kind of session. I did it with Yule. It's ... there's no way to make it ... there's no short-cut to this. I mean, I will try my hardest not to fall into the trap which I know I'm going to fall into -- you go back to the well-worked stories, you know ...

SS: There are some things that only have one answer.

RL: It's just one hopes that we can find a way to change the questions.

SS: Yeah, exactly. So did Yule approach you and say, `I want to do this '?

RL: No, what happened was he came to ask about Sean Connery because he was writing a book called Sean Connery . And, at the end of it, he obviously enjoyed the chats and the jokes and he said, `You ought to write a book, because of all the people you know.' And I said, `Well, I suppose so.' And he said, `Well, why don't you do it? If you need any help, I'll help, and we can talk about it.' So we did a couple of hours together and then he said, `Maybe you should go off and do it.' And it was going to be an autobiography, and then I found I just couldn't actually get it down. So I came back to him and said, `It's no good, I don't have the stamina for it.' And he said, `Well, look, I think I'll do it. Why don't I just do a biography? We'll just carry on the way we have, but it'll be my telling of the story.' And I hadn't really read very much of his work. Halfway through it, I read his book on David Puttnam's time at Columbia and the warning bells started to sound, but by then it was too late.

SS: Why did the warning bells sound?

RL: We have a magazine here called Woman's Own ...

SS: I know it.

RL: You got the feeling?

SS: Yeah, I got it.

RL: OK. And, in the end, that's exactly what happened. I found that I would tell him the story, and I know the story works because I've done it, I've had dinners out of it. And I would read it and think, `This just isn't working.' Then at the last minute he found some of those stills and put in comic captions. And a lot of it is inaccurate.

SS: What sort of stuff?

RL: Simple details, biographical details and things like that. I probably wasn't precise enough, but I'm sure I didn't say things the way he said them.

SS: For somebody like me it filled in a lot of gaps, because there wasn't that much available on you other than the Sinyard book. But as someone who by all accounts relishes privacy, the idea of a biography must have been a little disconcerting for you.

RL: Well, I think the problem is that I'd fallen into it and I'd taken that first step, and from then on I couldn't get out of it gracefully. And I suppose it's one of those things that under any normal circumstances you would never allow to happen. If it were material that you were developing, then you would instinctively prepare yourself for all the warning signs, and you'd say, `There's a way out of this. I'm not going to commit my energy to it or give up that other job until ...' But with this I had no experience in doing it, and it just fell apart on me, really.

SS: So after A Hard Day's Night, did you sense a point coming at which you would have to decide, `How much of a Richard Lester public persona am I going to allow to occur and participate in?'

RL: Well, I was sitting in a wagon that was going downhill and I had no control over it whatsoever, because I'm one of the seventeen people who was the fifth Beatle, you know, and that happens whether you want it to or not. Certainly, I never set out to do anything that would not benefit a film, but since I was making more or less two films a year there was always some publicity operation in full swing.

SS: It's funny because many of the reviews, especially the critical ones, seem to take you to task for being in the public eye so much. You get the impression -- reading some of these pieces -- that you were running around talking to anyone who asked and posing for pictures whenever you went on the set, and that doesn't seem to be your style.

RL: Well, one thing is sure, you had no choice, because if you are near the centre of the universe for three or four years, you can't help it. Of all the famous photographic shoots of all the people in that period I think there is only one that wasn't absolutely connected either with the location or at the studio, and that was Cecil Beaton's. It was just, `I want to photograph you'; and it was a Royal Command performance: you go and that's it.

SS: Do you still have a copy?

RL: I don't have the original, no, no. It's in his book. But it was an interesting experience because we went into this wonderful Georgian house with beautiful décor and the first thing he said to me when I met him was, `I hope you don't find the smell of that jasmine too overpowering.' He then proceeded to play the part of Stan Laurel with his assistant: `What's ...?' `Which lens is ...?' `Where ...?' `Is this black?' `Have we got ...?' And I thought, `I don't believe this.' And in ten minutes he'd said, `That's lovely, thank you.' And the best photographs I've ever had in my whole life came out of it. I've never paid a publicist a penny in my whole life. I just find the whole thing a total waste of time. I've never had a cuttings service; I've never had anything of that sort ever, and never, never would dream of it. But it's like the same sense of A Hard Day's Night being hysterically overcut. Some university did an analysis of the well-known films of 1964, and there are fewer actual cuts -- in other words, the number of pieces of film -- in A Hard Day's Night than any of the other features of that year. I mean, there were times in films -- certainly with Help! and Forum -- where through expediency one was forced to cut more than one wanted to. For instance, Phil Silvers had continuous breakdowns and then just couldn't remember any lines of dialogue.

SS: That's interesting, because it doesn't look like that.

RL: And then Ringo developing that tic during Help!.

SS: Yeah, I didn't know that until reading the Yule book, that's really strange. And wasn't he getting a white eyebrow?

RL: Yeah, that's right, it went almost immediately ...

SS: When I was shooting Kafka, I got a patch of white in my facial hair overnight. It's the only time it's ever happened. I guess it's just stress.

RL: Yeah, absolutely. God knows, Ringo was stressed at the time and he was trying to bear up, but that was really the beginning of the worst period for him. Thirty years later, I'm still astonished how well they behaved.

SS: Well, considering how people with much less excuse and talent behave now, it is amazing. Getting back to A Hard Day's Night, why did you work with [film editor] John Jympson only once?

RL: I was never in sync with him.

SS: Really?

RL: We're enormously good friends, and he never stopped working. John was a workaholic. Literally, he would go from one film on a Friday and start the next on the Monday. I just never got in sync with him, and I would have loved to have worked with him again. And he, me. I found working with the editor to be the best collaboration ultimately; I've really worked with only three editors and made twenty-three films.

Monday, 25 March 1996. Baton Rouge/Paris

On the plane. Hard to believe it was almost a year ago to the day we began shooting Schizopolis .

Across from me is a couple that I'm assuming must be Famous, because they look like they must be Famous. I'm not sure how to explain that -- it's just an energy or something. The woman is very tall and striking, and the man is taller still and sporting a short, bleached-blond haircut. They are dressed in really great clothes and appear to be very much in love and I've decided that I hate them.

Tuesday, 26 March 1996. Paris

The Cognac Film Festival put me at the Warwick Hotel, and when I was checking in I spotted the Famous Couple in the lobby. Are they following me? Am I following them? Later I did press interviews for The Underneath , which is opening in France on 11 April. I tried hard not to betray the fact that I'm unhappy with the film, since Michele Halberstadt and Laurent Petin went to considerable lengths to convince UIP to let them release it independently here. I danced around the fact that I am working on `something new'. Later still, after perusing a fax from Henry Selick about Toots and the Upside Down House , I had dinner with Michele and Laurent, and we talked about Schizopolis . They watched a tape of it last night and liked it a lot, although they said they felt the third section was too long. Through a tense smile, I said I'd look at it.

FYI The food at Burger King in Paris tastes just like the Burger King food in the US.

Wednesday, 27 March 1996. Paris/Cognac

Traveled to Cognac, shoe-horned into a chartered plane with all the guests of the Festival and a tonne of press. My heart went out to Gregory Peck and his wife as they slowly navigated their way down the crowded aisle and into their tiny seats. I also spotted John Dahl, Jury President, and Keith Carradine, Fellow Jury Member. The Famous Couple has turned out to be Famke Janssen (who is on the Jury with me) and her husband, film-maker Kip Williams. They were really nice and I no longer hate them. I was taken to my hotel, which turned out to be an implausibly beautiful château owned by the Martell family. The room and the view were so spectacular that it was minutes before I noticed there wasn't a TV.

There was an opening-night ceremony for the Festival, and after the Jury Members were presented to the audience I had to introduce The Underneath , which was the opening-night film, and then sit through it . Eons passed and we were taken back to the Martell mansion for a luxurious dinner, where I was embarrassed once again by my inability to speak French (or any other foreign language). I inadvertently compensated, however, by speaking simplified English slowly with a slight mid-Atlantic accent. Charming.

Friday-Saturday, 29-30 March 1996. Cognac

Screenings, rich food and late-night chats with John and Beth Dahl.

STEVEN SODERBERGH: What is a typical day for you during the week, or is there one?

RICHARD LESTER: There isn't really. I normally come in to my office in the studio for a couple of hours in the morning, that's all. There's the awfully boring business of keeping an office going, doing the VAT returns and paying the bills, the occasional request to autograph a still or something. I could easily not come in, but I just like to.

SS: You got out of high school early, you went to college young and you were pursuing a degree in clinical psychology.

RL: Not pursuing, avoiding . It was pursuing me. And I was determined to keep my head down until it had gone by. I chose it, I suppose, by default. My mother was an operating-theater nurse and my father was a teacher of English and Shakespearean English. I imagine, as most children do, I was determined not to have anything to do with those two professions. And there wasn't a lot else that seemed interesting.

SS: You didn't ever consider going to a music school?

RL: No. When I was offered any sort of lessons I always turned them down. And it wasn't until I was about twelve that I decided that I wanted to learn how to play `Body and Soul' on the piano. And it took me a year to work it out. The next song I decided on, I think, was `Tenderly'. It took me about six months and then the next one took four months and then I found that I could just play anything.

SS: `Body and Soul' was a pretty complicated thing to start with.

RL: It was a pretty stupid thing to start with. Once I started to master the piano, I started with the next instrument and went on to the clarinet, and then the guitar. Every summer from then on through university I would go to the local store and rent an instrument. One summer I would take the trombone and have it for two months, renting it, and then give it back. Just to learn how to mess around with it.

SS: Anybody complain about the noise?

RL: We lived on three acres. Long-suffering parents; it was all right. Anyway, when I went to the university, psychology seemed to be the sort of wonderfully weak option. It didn't seem to offend anyone. And the preparatory school that I went to was so good that I literally had no need to do any work in four years of university. I just coasted through and I learned how to make Martinis and I played on the weekends at a bar and on campus, and did the things that people do learning how to grow up, but which I had never learned to do. And I fell in with the theatrical and music people, and that is when we formed Little Vocal Group and that became how I got into entertainment and stayed -- added to the fact that I felt quite early on that there was a lot of fraudulent thinking in psychology.

SS: I gather you had some experiences that really turned you off?

RL: The biggest was that we were allowed to make recommendations -- which were normally accepted -- as to whether children should be institutionalized on the basis of the way that we were testing them. I was eighteen at the time. And I thought if I ever become a parent and some eighteen-year-old says, `I'm recommending that your child be taken away and put in an institution because I have just given him a test and he's failed by three points', I would have come at him with a gun.

SS: Yes. .

RL: What right have we to do all of this? There seemed to be -- and I'm speaking of 1950, I'm not saying that it's true now -- an overriding interest for psychology to legitimize itself. It was a massive edifice of self-justification. It was trying to be the kind of grown-up science that chemistry and physics were. It kept looking for means by which statistics could prove something that was unprovable. I thought that it seemed silly, and I came away from it a little bit like John Lennon when asked whether he would like to be an actor on How I Won the War . He said, `It's just terribly silly, isn't it?'

SS: There's a great R. D. Laing quote: `I'm much less concerned by the powerless fear in some of the patients I see than the fearless power in some of my colleagues.' The desire to apply hard-and-fast templates to such a complicated realm is understandable, but not necessarily possible, I think.

RL: We seem to be moving toward the reverse. Psychology has become more relaxed about that. Yet, as things go on, the questions that were being asked in the fifties are being answered by absolutes, because it's turned out to be genetics and heredity instead of environment. In Victorian times you used to have plaster heads with little numbers on them and it could tell you where everything was, and then by the fifties we were going, `Ha ha ha -- look at that!' Now those maps are being redrawn. They were slightly wrong, but there are now maps of the head again and they are saying, `Yes, it's right there. That's the thing that makes you remember numbers!'

SS: Have you ever been a teacher yourself?

RL: No. I spent two or three weeks at Rice University in the eighties. They asked if I would come and do a film course. And it was appalling.

SS: Really? Why?

RL: Well, first of all, I'm not a good teacher.

SS: Why?

RL: I don't think I'm patient.

SS: That's not good.

RL: I was surrounded by a hundred students, ninety-seven of whom were idiots and the other three were so intelligent that they scared me to death. But my overriding memory is that everybody came in and immediately took their shoes off. It was as if one was going to the Blue Mosque in Isfahan.

SS: Wow.

RL: Put their feet up and kicked their shoes off. Sort of a jock mentality. And I thought, `What I am I doing here?' None of them were the least bit interested. I remember it was the early eighties and I suggested that they do an examination of this new phenomenon called Aids in downtown Houston. Nobody knew what the word meant. By that time, if I'm sitting here in suburban England and I knew about it, certainly downtown Houston would have known about it. But they didn't seem to be interested -- which was surprising and disappointing.

SS: You did this out of curiosity?

RL: Yes, curiosity. Absolute curiosity. Because even if it had been wonderful, I know that I'm not a good teacher.

Sunday, 31 March 1996. Cognac

Jury deliberations. We gave the prize to Stacy Title's The Last Supper , basically because it was liked by everyone and hated by no one. That's usually the way these things work, although when I was on the Jury at Sundance in 1990 I refused to leave the room unless we gave the Grand Prize to Chameleon Street . Before you leap to the conclusion that this was a heroic act on my part, you should be aware that this situation arose only because the Festival had made the mistake of selecting an even number of Jurors without designating someone as Jury President (the President's vote is weighted in case of a deadlock).

Monday, 1 April 1996. Cognac/London

Chaos. There was a mix-up about transportation, and the two bottles of drop-dead cognac I bought to give to Richard Lester were put in the trunk of someone else's car. I called Lester from the train and confirmed that I will meet him tomorrow morning at 9.30.

I arrived in London and went to the offices of Faber and Faber to see Walter Donohue, who is the editor responsible for this `project'. I rummaged around his hilariously cramped office and appropriated a bunch of books that looked interesting. He introduced me to Le Grand Fromage, Matthew Evans, who provoked in me a strange sensation: the minute I opened my mouth I felt like I was wasting his time. He asked me if I was going to find something `hidden' within the Lester canon, explaining that he always took the films at face value. In an unintentionally actory, self-conscious voice I said there was plenty to explore and that it would all be very illuminating and very entertaining. He smiled and left and I felt sure that within minutes I'd be escorted from the building by armed guards and held up by my ankles until Faber's advance money sprinkled on to the sidewalk. But no. Instead I was left to my own, various devices, which is actually worse.

I spent the evening reading through my Lester material and flipping quickly through the adult pay channels so as not to incur a charge, cheap pervert that I am.

STEVEN SODERBERGH: When you were doing live TV in Philadelphia, it seems you reached a point where you saw your life possibly going down a certain path, and it wasn't really a path that you wanted to pursue.

RICHARD LESTER: It wasn't so much that, as the fact that I'd gone too quickly down the path. And I thought if I don't want to be on this path, I'd better get off very rapidly.

SS: You'd reached a point that guys don't normally reach until they're forty.

RL: And I was twenty-one. I had a car, an apartment, a girlfriend who had a child by somebody else, and I thought, `I'm settled down. You know, just go out and buy the dog and I'm finished.'

SS: Right.

RL: So we'd been given a week's holiday as a reward for doing 260 live shows in a year, and they said you can go where you like. And I thought, `Go where I like? Where can I go?' The whole world was my oyster and I don't know how or why I picked Bermuda, which is the most American place. But I was intrigued, and this was my first time out of the country, so from the time I came back I started plotting to leave. I saved some money and got myself hired to write one article a week for a local newspaper, then got it syndicated in two more, which gave me $10.00 a week and I thought, `That's it.'

SS: What kind of articles were you writing?

RL: Anything I felt like. My view of Europe. ( Laughter ).Yeah. Having arrived two days before, that's The World According to Garp.

SS: At what point did you feel that you probably wouldn't settle in the United States?

RL: It took until I was working in English again. I could storm around and not starve and manage and have a good time as a lad in a variety of countries, but during that year, I was facing the fact that because of the language barrier, you are a four-year-old in any of the countries you go to. A smart-ass four-year-old. And I wanted to trade back and become a twenty-year-old again, with verbs in sentences. So I knew I had to come to England, although I had no plan ever to come to England, it never occurred to me. But I thought I have to get back into English. So I passed my first thirteen-week work permit here, and I began to think I might be here for some time.

SS: So, in general, you didn't have any strong desire to return to the States?

RL: No. My mother was living alone and I felt compassion for her, but she was absolutely marvelous to me in having the sense to say, `If you feel you want to do it, do it. Don't worry about me. I'm all right.' And it was undoubtedly a great sacrifice, and I'm sure a great disappointment to her. But there was no looking back at all. The minute I got to Europe I felt more at ease.

SS: Were you working on your musical Curtains for Harry during this?

RL: Yes.

SS: And was that pretty much the way it sounds?

RL: It's pretty awful. Yeah. I don't think it's worth even trying to dredge through my memory of what any of it was.

SS: Shortly thereafter, there is the one-time-only Dick Lester Show, which sounded intriguing. In theory, this was a live show that was airing thirty minutes before it was supposed to. But I gather it didn't come together the way you wanted.

RL: I think, in reality, it was just dull. I think we had done it once before as someone's test-directing exercise, and under those circumstances it's a bit more relaxed because it's never going to be seen by anybody, except for people who are judging whether the putative director knows what he's doing. And since it was relaxed, we indulged in a fair amount of in-jokes, I suspect.

SS: Right.

RL: But when it actually happened, I think the thought that here we were live --

SS: -- sunk in --

RL: -- and, you know, on a Christmas week a lot of people are watching, and I think one's natural, youthful exuberance and arrogance was tempered.

SS: But it resulted in the call from Peter Sellers?

RL: Yes. The call from Peter Sellers.

SS: What did he say?

RL: He said, `Either that's the worst television program that I have ever, ever seen or I think you're on to something that we are aspiring to.' And I said, `Well, if there's a choice, could it be the latter?' And he said, `Would you like to have lunch and let's find out.'

SS: And did that lead right into Idiot's Weekly?

RL: That led absolutely into Peter and me going the next day to Spike Milligan, who lay on the floor with his head in a coil of rope. There he was, this wonderful picture. He didn't look at me or get up or do anything; he just said, `Comedy will never work on television. I can write, "Two Eskimos go outside the igloo and the number 47 bus comes and they get off in Hyde Park." You can't do that. No point in talking about it. I'm not interested.' So we went away and then hired a group of young writers and a script supervisor and did, if you like, something in the style of The Goon Show and had very good reviews. At nine the next morning there was a phone call from Spike saying, `I've got the running order for the second show.' Not: `I was wrong; you were right.' Just nothing. It was just bang , off we go. He came into the office and said, `Does your secretary take shorthand?' I turned to her and asked, `Do you take shorthand?', never having seen her actually take a pencil, and she said, `Yes.' And Spike said, `Come with me.' And he pulled out of his pocket a film, which we put on the telecine. He said, `I've just heard about this. I think it's supposed to be quite funny.' And it was a silent cartoon that a man called Bob Godfrey -- twice an Academy Award-winner -- had made. Spike looked at it and started to ad lib a commentary on it. He hadn't seen it before, and did seven minutes of the most extraordinarily perfect vocal commentary to this piece, which my secretary managed to put down, and which we then recorded. And we were off and running. We did three series together.

SS: During that first and only Dick Lester Show, you came into contact with Alun Owen, is that right?

RL: Yes. He was an actor friend, one of the two directors that I was assigned to as governess to make sure they were learning how to direct. Alan was not yet writing, but had it; he was obviously going to write. We were the two performers in the Dick Lester Show .

Tuesday, 2 April 1996. London

Taxi to Waterloo, then a train to St Margarets and Twickenham Film Studios. I was early, so I went to a nearby coffee shop and had a croissant in front of an autographed picture of Helena Bonham-Carter, who seemed very nice. I walked through the (smallish) studio gates at 9.27 a.m. and the smiling, middle-aged receptionist phoned Lester to announce my arrival. I went upstairs and down the hall to his office, where he greeted me at the door. He struck me (repeatedly) as energetic, gracious and in good health. The office was small but by no means uncomfortable, and the walls were covered with the posters from all his films, even the ones he probably wants to forget. He offered to make tea (I accepted) and asked me what this was all about. I launched into a lengthy explanation of how tired I was of making `normal' movies, how I had decided to start over, and how my interest in his work led me to make Schizopolis with a crew of five and some old Arri gear, etc. He nodded, smiled and asked another question, which made it clear that what he meant was: how will this book work? I launched into another lengthy explanation of the book contract and the royalties and the deal and how excited Faber and Faber were. He nodded, smiled and asked another question that made it clear that all he wanted to know was how would the interview itself proceed? I immediately blurted out that I thought we'd just skip around and let the conversation find its own way, a complete reversal of what I had planned. He said that sounded fine, and I took out my notebook of questions and turned on the tape recorder, experiencing the apologetic awkwardness that I imagine most journalists feel under similar circumstances. The large window behind Lester filled the room with David Watkin-like light: sun peaking through an overcast sky that edged out his figure and bounced off the couch to provide a soft, pleasing fill. And so we began.

When we broke for lunch I felt as though I hadn't drawn him out much, and of course much of our lunchtime conversation was filled with things I wish I had on tape. I did get one strong reaction from him, however. When I described a cocktail I imbibed in France consisting of cognac and ginger ale, his face turned red and his features contorted as though he were trying to swallow a piece of shag carpeting. No amount of explanation could convince him that I hadn't broken the rules of proper drinking.

Back in my hotel I began to think that this needs to be different from the typical Q. & A. book, but ideas were not forthcoming. I have to ask Lester about his desire and ability to keep his work separate from his life, and I have to ask him more about why he doesn't think he'll direct again. Is it strictly because of Roy Kinnear's accident, or are there other issues at play? I also wondered if I want him to direct more for my sake than for his. Why don't I leave the guy alone? I pictured Matthew Evans, hand on hip, telling me to stop being a pussy.

STEVEN SODERBERGH: When you got this call from Sellers, this is at the height of The Goon Show's popularity .

RICHARD LESTER: Yes.

SS: This must have been an exciting call to get.

RL: Absolutely. And again, fortunately, my sound man on the television show had been doing sound effects for Sellers on radio at the BBC, so the minute that I'd arrived and started working, I'd been caught up in the Goon Show mania through John Hamilton, the sound man, who had chapter and verse on it.

SS: Right.

RL: So, I therefore knew a little bit more than I would normally have, considering I'd just arrived in the country.

SS: There were seven episodes of Idiot's Weekly? Then what happened?

RL: Then there was A Show Called Fred .

SS: Why all the title changes?

RL: We couldn't use the word `Goon' because the BBC owned it. And titles were chosen just for fun. Yes. No sense of being commercially sensible. So, A Show Called Fred and then Son of Fred.

SS: I gather that they were getting increasingly weird. Spike sounds like Samuel Beckett with a sense of humor.

RL: It's a bit unfair to Beckett, who did have a sense of humor.

SS: Well, that's true. I guess I mean Spike was a little more accessible.

RL: Spike was a restless soul. And he found that Idiot's Weekly , which was very sketch-oriented, was easy for him to do, even in the slapdash fashion we employed. Then A Show Called Fred came, and he was starting to push and see what we could get up to, and we started doing a bit of filming, very much what you would expect from Monty Python's work. It would have been indistinguishable from Python , I think, to somebody looking back over forty years. With Son of Fred we were now quite successful and it had a very good audience and amazingly good reviews, because all the intellectuals grabbed at it. It was the first piece of commercial television, in light entertainment at least, where there was something that was unexpected and worrying. With Son of Fred , it just became bizarre. All scenery was removed; one prop would run through the sketches. It would be one thing in one sketch and, because of its shape, it could also suddenly become a key factor in another, and that would be the only common link. Then he started attempting to remove punchlines by interlocking sketches. We are talking a long, long time ago.

SS: Right.

RL: And it was very bold.

SS: It sounds great. So this came to an end and you went off again.

RL: It came to an end. In fact, ratings were dropping as it became more unintelligible. And it was pulled about two or three shows before the end of the thirteen that were ordered. Also, it was very hard for Spike, because he was writing the radio shows as well. A half-hour radio and a half-hour television show on his own every week. The man was on the most massive tranquilizers. Any of Spike's daily medication would have put a troop of horses out.

SS: So you went traveling after this. Was this by necessity or --

RL: No, no. My wife was under contract to one of the commercial television companies. You know, ballet and popular dance. We were both in work and my contract was there and before I left I had agreed to do that television series I shared with Joe Losey.

SS: Mark Saber?

RL: The work was about, it wasn't that. We were renting an apartment, and before we started falling into the same trap, we thought of traveling and I loved traveling. And I think that Suez was a defining moment. That episode of dishonesty and collusion among governments that we thought were proper provoked -- not only in me, but in a massive number of people in this country -- a sense of Let's Get Out Of Here!

(Continues...)