Ultimately, I think writing is more … satisfying [than acting], … because if you write something, later on in the day … you can read it through again and you know that it's … good. That's a very satisfying feeling because [the work] is there, it's something you've created. … Acting is … a skill which a lot of people have. Less so with writing …. But, I'm enjoying acting now much more than I did. It was torture for me at one point, in the latter days of [Monty Python's Flying Circus]. But then, after sobering up, I really began to enjoy it again.
English actor, comedian and writer (1941–1989)
Graham Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was a British comedy writer, comedy actor, and physician. Chapman is best known for his work as a member of the comedy troupe Monty Python, which he co-founded in 1969. He and comedian John Cleese were writing partners for about 20 years. Whilst studying medicine at the University of Cambridge's Emmanuel College, Chapman joined the Cambridge Footlights. This led to work writing comedy scripts for BBC Radio and BBC Television. He co-created and co-starred in the sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show and Monty Python's Flying Circus, and starred in the feature films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), The Odd Job (1978), and Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979). Chapman died in 1989 of complications from cancer and stroke.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Birth Name:
Graham Arthur Chapman
Also Known As:
Gra
Alternative Names:
Gray Chapman
From Wikidata (CC0)
There was one occasion when John Cleese and myself actually felt guilty about laughing at something we were writing, because it was in incredibly bad taste. So bad was the taste that we just couldn't help laughing at it. It concerned a gentleman walking into … an undertaker's premises with his dead mother in a sack. And from there it got worse.
Once the decision had been made, once I decided to stop [drinking], it was easy—except for the … three days of unpleasantness, of—well, of having things crawl all over me and hallucinating. … One of the worst things was not being able to remember if I'd slept or not, whether I was dreaming, or whether I was awake. I didn't know.
The very first day of filming of The Holy Grail, in fact, we were halfway up a mountainside in Glen Coe, and I hadn't gotten my daily dose, and it was seven o'clock in the morning that we left the hotel. The bar wasn't open; I hadn't realised this, and hadn't gotten anything prepared the night before that I should have if I'd researched my drinking properly. And so I had DTs on the mountainside while having to try and remember lines and (uh) stand up. … It was then that I decided next time that I do a job like this I'm going to be clean for it. It's not fair to the other chaps in the group, it's not fair to me, it's not fair to what I've written, and it's very stupid.
I think … [what attracted me to show business] was the early radio shows. I was an avid listener to radio shows like Take It from Here; before that, Jewel and Warriss, Hancock, all sorts of radio shows. And then, later—when I was around thirteen, fourteen—The Goon Show, of course. Here came a show which was not like any of the other shows. It didn't have the same kind of rules. It didn't have any rules. It didn't even like the medium that was putting it out, particularly; it didn't like the BBC. Wonderful! There was something I could relate to, and did.