Morecambe and Wise 'Monty Python' UEA interview sparks further find

A long-lost Morecambe and Wise interview has been found almost in its entirety after a clip hit the headlines last year - prompting the rediscovery.

The comedy double act told how they were "bored stiff" by Monty Python in an old university TV station interview, in a two-minute clip unearthed in 2021.

A restoration expert spotted the story and remembered having the tape, leading to the longer interview being found.

Film professor Melanie Williams said it was "so important to preserve" it.

The legendary duo were filmed speaking to the University of East Anglia's (UEA) student TV station Nexus after a performance at Norwich's Theatre Royal in November 1973.

Monty Python's Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and John Cleese were pictured together for the 30th anniversary of their surreal Flying Circus series

Their bruising take on cult comics Monty Python was revealed, with Eric Morecambe saying the ensemble performed "university comedy... and I'm afraid that a lot of it is very unprofessional".

However, this latest find featured most of the seven-minute interview, with just the opening seconds missing.

Morecambe and Wise appeared in a playful mood, but revealed how they felt "modern" performers had it too easy reaching the top.

"I think they've reasonably got it made today," said Wise.

"A lot of people are stars and they shouldn't really be stars. They've been accelerated into it."

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, pictured in 1970, were watched by millions of TV viewers

"To start is probably more difficult, but once you're on the way it's easier," said Morecambe.

"There's more money to be earned now. You work clubs nowadays with salaries that the tops of the bills used to be getting when we were youngsters."

'Baking the tape in an oven'

The Monty Python clip was discovered last year by former station member Paul Hayes, now a BBC radio producer, when he digitised a duplicate copy he had made from an original VHS compilation tape kept in Nexus' studio.

"When I was a student at the UEA in the early 2000s there was a cupboard full of these old Sony reel-to-reel videotapes from the 1970s in the studio," he said.

"One of them was labelled as having a 'famous Nexus in-depth interview' with Morecambe and Wise on it, but we didn't have anything to play it on."

The tape's label boasts of the long-lost "famous Nexus" interview

In 2004, Mr Hayes sent the tape to the BBC but it was unable to be viewed, so they passed it on to restoration specialist Peter Crocker, who was also unable to salvage any material.

"Peter hung on to the tape all these years and got in touch with me when the story about their Monty Python criticisms made the news, as it had reminded him that he still had it," said Mr Hayes.

Mr Crocker then gave the tape to another specialist David Palfreyman, who runs a specialist film and videotape restoration business, and he managed to play the old format after - bizarrely - baking the tape in his oven.

Restoration expert David Palfreyman managed to play the tape after both baking it and finding an outdated machine to play it on

"After a while tapes tend to get sticky," said Mr Palfreyman.

"Once they get sticky, they start to lose their magnetic strip, and if you start to play it chances are the magnetic strip of the tape is just going to fall off.

"But if you bake it for a certain length of time it kind of resets everything and dries it out."

• Rediscovered episode is aired at Christmas

• Morecambe and Wise 'bored stiff' by Monty Python

• How Monty Python's dead parrot went live

However, the other challenge is trying to find the right machine - which is rarely available second-hand and then it often needs refurbishing before it will work to play obsolete formats.

Interestingly, the full tape - that ran for almost 40 minutes - also contained an interview with famous French mime artist Marcel Marceau, who appeared at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival in October 1973 but without any of his props after they got lost in transit.

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise were scathing about Monty Python in the grainy TV footage from 1973

Prof Williams, a lecturer in film and television studies at the UEA, said it was important to preserve such rare material.

"There's stuff that you get from it that you don't see in other kinds of interviews," she said.

"It's the perfect justification for why it's important to preserve this kind of material.

"It is rough around the edges in certain ways, but it enables them to do things that other kinds of media can't do, and I think it's so important to preserve those different perspectives that this kind of media can provide."

Publisher Colin Webb (centre) later worked with Morecambe and Wise on a book a few years after interviewing them as a student

Colin Webb, who was then a 25-year-old mature student at the UEA, carried out the interview and was happy it was now available to view again after nearly half a century.

"It just reminds you what delightful people they were, really," he said.

"Totally human and funny and relaxed, and surprisingly very willing to give their time to our university TV."

Speaking last year, Monty Python member Sir Michael Palin said he was "a little hurt", but "intrigued" having seen the footage.

• Listen to the radio interview here

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