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Series 3, Episode 29: Ken Russell’s Garden Party
The cast:
FIRST EXPLORER John Cleese
SECOND EXPLORER Eric Idle
THIRD EXPLORER Graham Chapman
FOURTH EXPLORER Carol Cleveland
NATIVE Michael Palin
VOICE OVER Graham Chapman
The sketch:
CAPTION: ‘KEN RUSSELL’S GARDENING CLUB (1958)’
Voice Over: And now back to the story.
(Cut to the edge of the jungle. Emerging from the dense undergrowth are
two pigmy warriors pulling the four explorers who are roped together. The
pigmies carry spears. We lose the pigmies and hold just the explorers in
frame, and track with them.)
Third Explorer: That was a nasty business back at the restaurant.
First Explorer: Yes, I thought most places took Barclaycard nowadays.
Second Explorer: Where do you think they’re taking us, Brian?
Fourth Explorer: God knows!
Third Explorer: (pointing, eyes wide with amazement) Look!
(Cut to a stock shot of a volcano. Thrilling chord. Cut back to explorers.)
Second Explorer: (filled with awe) The sacred volcano Andu! Which no
man has seen before.
Third Explorer: No, no, no, next to that.
(Cut to stock shot of collection of big chimneys in a brickworks. Another
thrilling chord. Cut back to explorers.)
First Explorer: The London Brick Company?
Third Explorer: No, no, no, no – next to that.
(Cut to stock shot of plateau of Roiurama. Yet another thrilling chord.
Cut back to explorers.)
First Explorer: The forbidden plateau of Roiurama, the Lost World, thrown up by mighty earth movements thousands of millions of years ago, where strange primeval creatures defying evolution, lurk in the dark, impenetrable forests, cut off forever from the outside world.
Second Explorer: I still can’t see it.
Fourth Explorer: You don’t think that’s where they’re taking us?
Third Explorer: Yes, and God knows what we’ll find there.
(A pigmy native rushes up from behind them, holding a script.)
Native: What page please?
Second Explorer: What?
Native: (with a trace of irritation) What page in the script?
Second Explorer: (whispered) Page 7.
Native: (he speaks the lines over to himself) ‘Come on, you dogs, we have far to go. We must lose no time’. (tries with eyes shut) ‘Come on, you dogs, we have far to go. We must lose no time’. ‘Come on you dogs’. (throws away the script, starts to push them roughly) Come on you dogs, we have time to lose, this has gone too far.
(Stock film of Houses of Parliament from across the Thames.)