Gin & Tonic

[Jemble Fred]

CHAPMAN BIOPIC AIMS TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT
by Declan Joyce
Wednesday, 10 March 2004

"What you owe the dead," says Jim Yoakum, "is the truth."

The dead, in this instance, is Graham Chapman, who formed one-sixth of the legendary British comedy troupe Monty Python until he passed away from cancer in 1989 at age 48. And the truth, per Yoakum, is that while Chapman has never enjoyed as high a profile as his fellow Pythons John Cleese, Eric Idle or Michael Palin, he embodied the anarchic spirit of the Python troupe more completely than any of them. "All of the Pythons are enormously funny men," he says, "but you get the feeling that its their job and at the end of the day they go home and turn off the comedy button. Chapman lived and breathed this stuff."

A fuller vision of Chapman's life and work is what Yoakum, the curator of the Graham Chapman Archives in Atlanta (it's a long story) and the editor of two collections of Chapman's writings, hopes to bring to the screen with "Gin and Tonic," a $12-million movie based on the actor's life and work that is now in pre-production.

Yoakum's "Gin and Tonic" co-writer and the man who will direct the movie is David Eric Brenner (whose company, Hippofilms, will also produce). Though he and Yoakum have had, at times, "extremely heated" discussions about their competing visions for the script, both are agreed that Chapman is a vastly underappreciated performer. "He was a brilliant man, and one of deep contradictions," says Brenner. "He was an Cambridge-educated doctor on the road to a successful conservative life who gave it all up for comedy; he was unpredictable, wild, sometimes embarrassing when he was drunk but was also a deeply shy man. The other five Pythons acted and wrote Monty Python. Chapman lived Monty Python."

Much of his off-camera behavior, certainly, seems little removed from Python treasures like "Architect Sketch" or "Ministry of Silly Walks." In one legendary episode that he pulled off with his close friend and late Who drummer Keith Moon, Chapman walked into an upscale Savile Row tailor's shop in London and, having chosen a pair of expensive trousers, asked how strong they were. The flustered salesman said he had no idea, whereupon Moon, posing as another shopper, offered to help Chapman test their strength. The pair pulled on the trousers until they ripped in half. As the salesman looked on aghast, a one-legged man hired by Chapman and Moon hobbled into the store, took one look at the sundered pants and said, "That just what I've been looking for! Wrap 'em up."

Chapman's legacy as a writer and actor has been muddied by a tendency to focus on the two most media-ready aspects of his life: his alcoholism (in the early 70s he was downing two bottles of gin a day, but sobered up by 1977) and his homosexuality. "To focus on these things does him a great disservice, because he was a brilliant and brilliantly funny man," says Hans ten Cate, a long-time Python fan who is also the webmaster of the troupe's official website, pythonline.com. "Graham was a well-read, intelligent man, capable of the most erudite observations while also at the same time being sublimely silly. There was a lot more to him than people realize."

When Chapman died, in fact, he left behind 30 boxes of his output as a writer, almost all of which went unused in his lifetime and which now forms the bulk of the Chapman archives in Atlanta. Yoakum knew Chapman and collaborated with him towards the end of his life, and came into possession of the boxes when Chapman's longtime partner, David Sherlock, doubtless distressed by the constant reminders of his dead friend, threatened to put the whole lot out on the street. Yoakum now keeps the material in acid-free boxes in a climate-controlled location. "There's an enormous amount of stuff here that never saw the light of day," he says. Among the treasures was a play Chapman wrote in the mid-70s entitled "O, Happy Day" and which enjoyed a successful six-week run in Atlanta in 2000. The archives also receive a constant infusion of new material sent by Chapman fans from all over the U.S. and beyond.

In addition to his creative output, Chapman was, according to those who knew him, the most pleasant and approachable of men. Kim Howard Johnson, a frequent artistic collaborator with John Cleese and considered one of the world's foremost Python authorities, recalls a trip he took to London in 1978. "I showed up at Graham's house in Highgate on Sunday and explained who I was," he says. "He couldn't have been nicer, and even invited me to stay with him for a week." Johnson was later invited to Tunisia for the six-week shooting of the Python classic "Life of Brian" and remained close with Chapman until his death.

Auditions for the roles of the six Pythons begin in Los Angeles on March 20th, and Brenner says the interest in the project has been overwhelming. "We're getting in the region of 120 e-mails a day and phone never stops ringing," he says. "I keep having to add new staff." Principal photography begins in London later this year (a London location, in addition to providing generous tax breaks, will also afford an echt Python ambience) and the film is slated for release in mid- to late-2005, at which point, one hopes, comedic history's debt of truth to Graham Chapman will begin to be paid.

This is old news - but the stuff in bold??? Has Yoakum completely appropriated a Viv Stanshall story, or did Moon do this with every Tom, Dick and genius? It's not as if there's a shortage of Chapman anecdotes... but then it's not as if Jiom Yoakum is a normal man.

[Darrell]

For fuck's sake!

I wish Yoakum would just fuck off underground and quietly decompose.

[alan strang]

Jim Yoakum's psychosis-driven lies are legendary in the world of the internet. I wouldn't trust him to spell the word 'truth', let alone tell anything approaching it.

Bet you there'll be a scene towards the end featuring Chapman and Yoakum writing together (while watching the American Footie game - just to show that there was no gayness going on), backed with music from The Raves. He's coasted for so long on that I Was Chapman's Co-Writer nonsense, I'd be surprised if he didn't try to immortalise it forever on film.

Can't wait to see how the Douglas Adams collaboration is depicted, considering Yoakum's view that Adams was just sucking up to Chapman to carve out a career for himself (oh the irony there). Love the way he accused Adams of being two-faced about copyright on his messageboard (oh, and recently surpassed himself totally by getting the Out Of The Trees-based short story 'The Private Life Of Ghengis Khan' snipped out of reprints of The Salmon Of Doubt). Yoakum treats Chapman's memory as an extension of his own ego.

This film will just be a cheap biopic, shown on American TV (and once on C5) and will then sink without trace. No potential Naked Civil Servant here.

Chapman deserves so much better than this pillock.

[alan strang]

This is old news - but the stuff in bold??? Has Yoakum completely appropriated a Viv Stanshall story, or did Moon do this with every Tom, Dick and genius? It's not as if there's a shortage of Chapman anecdotes... but then it's not as if Jiom Yoakum is a normal man.

Yoakum declares himself a Bonzos 'archivist' so it's almost certain that he'd have heard the story attributed to Stanshall.

And, lest we forget, Yoakum has also spent a long time attempting to suck 'Legs' Larry Smith's dick, collaborating with him on an unstaged musical called 'Monarchy', and a Bonzos tribute LP which he's still trying desperately to sell. The latter apparently yielded a ridiculously nasty Google Newsgroup argument in which Yoakum accused Neil Innes of attempting to hijack the project - and was threatened with a libel action from Innes as a result!

Jim Yoakum doesn't like Neil Innes very much anymore either.

[Darrell]

and a Bonzos tribute LP which he's still trying desperately to sell.

Anyone ever had the misfortune to hear this? Dante's Seventh Circle of Tinny Casio Sound Banks and Embarrassing Female Backing Singers. It really is enough to make you feel ill.

[Barney Sloane]

Hasn't this biopic thingy been in development hell for ages?  There was a story about a year ago that Rhys Ifans was in the running for the Chapman role.

I smell another "Wired"...

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

"recently surpassed himself totally by getting the Out Of The Trees-based short story 'The Private Life Of Ghengis Khan' snipped out of reprints of The Salmon Of Doubt"

Really? Fuck's sake.

[Pinball]

'Tis a shame that Yoako doako dumdum has Graham's boxes of stuff. Bottomline - I want to see what's in those boxes! The egomania and associated greed I can live without. Sadly I fear the greed aspect will delay/prevent "the boxes" being published. Shit.