Series 3, Episode 30: Man Who Speaks in Anagrams

INTERVIEWER

Michael Palin

MAN

Eric Idle

The sketch:

(Stock colour film of vivid explosive action for fifteen seconds: dog fight RAF style; trains crashing; Spanish hotel blowing up; car crashing and exploding; train on collapsing bridge; volcano erupting; Torrey Canyon burning; forest fire blazing. From this we zoom the following words individually:)

CAPTION: 'BLOOD, DEATH, WAR, HORROR'

(Cut to an interviewer in a rather dinky little set. On the wall there is a rather prettily done sign, not too big, saying 'Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror', as if it were a show's title.)

Interviewer: Hello, good evening and welcome to another edition of Blood Devastation Death War and Horror, and later on we'll be meeting a man who does gardening. But first on the show we've got a man who speaks entirely in anagrams.

Man: Taht si crreoct.

Interviewer: Do you enjoy it?

Man: I stom certainly od. Revy chum so.

Interviewer: And what's your name?

Man: Hamrag - Hamrag Yatlerot

Interviewer: Well, Graham, nice to have you on the show. Now, where do you come from?

Man: Bumcreland.

Interviewer: Cumberland?

Man: Stah't it sepricely.

Interviewer: And I believe you're working on an anagram version of Shakespeare?

Man: Sey, sey - taht si crreoct, er - ta the mnemot I'm wroking on "The Mating of the Wersh".

Interviewer: "The Mating of the Wersh"? By William Shakespeare?

Man: Nay, by Malliwi Rapesheake.

Interviewer: And what else?

Man: "Two Netlemeng of Verona", "Twelfth Thing", "The Chamrent of Venice"....

Interviewer: Have you done "Hamlet"?

Man: "Thamle". 'Be ot or bot ne ot, tath is the nestquoi.'

Interviewer: And what is your next project?

Man: "Ring Kichard the Thrid".

Interviewer: I'm sorry?

Man: 'A shroe! A shroe! My dingkom for a shroe!'

Interviewer: Ah, Ring Kichard, yes... but surely that's not an anagram, that's a spoonerism.

Man: If you're going to split hairs, I'm going to piss off. (Exit)