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Series 3, Episode 30: Man Who Speaks in Anagrams
The cast:
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)