Gail Renard (twice Chair of the Writers Guild GB) and I wrote most of the Famous Five scripts (ITV, 1977-9). Two of the surviving child stars—Marcus Harris (Julian) and Jennifer Thanisch (Anne)—joined us for cake and lashings of ginger beer (we raised a glass to Gary Russell (Dick) who could not make it). I’d forgotten how many famous British thesps were guest stars in those episodes (Patrick Troughton, James Villiers, Brian Glover, Ronald Fraser, Cyril Luckham, Brenda Cowling, Geoffrey Bayldon—and a very young Rupert Graves).
The Filly Loo is a summer solstice ritual of the old world. At dusk, to a lone, slow drumbeat, dancers (male and female), wearing stag horns and morris-like costumes, accompanied by maidens in regency dresses carrying flaming torches, slow-march downhill to the village pond, where a water nymph (la fille a l’eau) is said to live. The crowd is silent. There are no phone lights to interrupt the mood. A fiddler plays, and dancers weave in and out of each other in the torch-lit darkness while we watch, silent.
Magical.
Eric Idle recorded Just Say Yes (my lyrics, music by Lee Holdridge) for the MGM film The Secret of NIMH 2 back in the 90’s. He’d never seen it until I sent it to him before we met again for dinner at our mutual friend Kathy Lette’s house. I told him it was inspired by Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” mantra. In it, the evil mouse tries to tempt his little brother, the hero, to join him in his dastardly scheme.
Eric is a great songwriter himself. The Rutles, Brave Sir Robyn (Monty Python and The Holy Grail), I Like Chinese—and many others. His classic Always Look on the Bright Side of Life is one of the top two most-played songs at funerals and memorials in the UK—the other being AC/DC’s Highway to Hell.
I expect that will be his encore / closing number when he and his guest-star musicians play at The Royal Albert Hall on September 27th. I look forward to singing along, just as we all did at the Python reunion concerts at the O2 a decade ago.
So it’s been quite the summer so far. I’ve delivered my polish of New Rock New Rules, book 3 in the New Rock series, to Lezli Robyn, my editor—publication party at the World Fantasy Con in Brighton on Halloween. Now for recording the audiobook, then off to Seattle for Worldcon in August.
I hope to see some of you there. Or in Brighton. Let me know if you come to the publication party (October 31st). There will be cake and lashings of ginger beer.
Kathy Lette’s very funny and enjoyable new book The Revenge Club is out now in the UK and Oz.
