Nov 20th, 1975

We had a lot of fun deciding on silly names for our US company, or partnership, or whatever it’s called. ‘Evado-Tax’ is the one we all wanted, but Anne thought there might be problems, as the company is operating on the fringes of legality! So I suggested Paymortax — and so we now have an American company called Paymortax and McWhirter!

Nov 20th, 1978

To the Helmsdale Preview Theatre in Audley Square at four to see the assembly of all the Brian material. Apart from the Python team . . . [others and] George Harrison . . . there.

After cups of tea and a 15-minute wait for Dr Chapman, the film starts. The whole preparatory assembly runs two hours and eight minutes.

General consensus is that it’s a most encouraging viewing. Some scenes provoked gales of laughter — including the latter half of Ben and Pilate’s audience chamber, the Hermit’s hole, Brian’s bedroom when the crowd arrive, and the Centurion and Matthias at the door of Matthias’ house (the searching). There was a consistent level of interest and no embarrassments . . .

[A critic] thought Citizen Kane quite useless and Python, now he had finally seen it, junk. Quite a refreshing bucket of water after the almost unqualified critical praise which Python has had to endure these last few years.

— Michael Palin, Diaries 1969 – 1979: The Python Years