Goodbye, Michael Palin. I'll miss you. Perhaps.

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My plan to conquer the theatrical world suffered a small hiccup this week. On Wednesday the phone rings. It's the printer in Birmingham. "Nick, those Henry V - Lion of England touring brochures we sent urgently to London last Friday for distribution by the tour booker. They've come back to Brum. They're sitting in front of me now. The courier couldn't find the address". Welcome to the World Of Theatrical Production. It got sorted, of course, but aggro always seems to follow productions.

And talking of dramas, I heard the first half of a new play on Wednesday. Stephen Jackson is a writer who I got to know from putting on plays at the Billesley Pub in Brum. Stephen attended the marvelous playwriting M.A. established by David Edgar at Birmingham University and got to know me at the Billesley over a cheeky beer or two. (By the way, one of the top New Writing theatres in London once described Stephen as "one of the top twenty playwrites in the U.K." So obviously, that's why he's never had a play commercially produced. Cursed, you see.) His style didn't suit what I was trying to achieve at the Billesley at that time, but he's a brilliant writer and he once knocked up a new children's Christmas play for us in ten days for a one off performance at the N.E.C. I hope to incorporate that play about a rather bossy but loveable little girl, Margy, into the Maverick canon one day. He's also had success with a children's book, called 'Mirrorworld'. It's very clever and not only did Steve write it, he also illustrated it. So Stephen has this new play. He brings it round to my tip... sorry, house... and reads the first half. A bit overlong, but very enjoyable with some marvelous comic situations. I won't say too much here, in case Stephen kills me for blowing his plot. We then go for a pint and a smoke at the Hare & Hounds. Neither of us actually smokes any more, but the nicotine fog is so severe at the H&H I reckon I inhaled a packet of ten. Roll on the smoking ban in July! In the pub, Stephen stops choking for long enough to make the comment, "So that's the SECOND play you've read in your house then." Second? Oh yes, of course. The first play, coincidentally, was Henry V - Lion of England! I only knew one actor then, so I got him round to read my script out loud. On that instance we pushed the furniture back and started to block some action as well. Robert Stanson, the actors name. A good lad. The first time I met him was at a party and he nearly threw up on me and so for ever more was known as Rob Vomit! He played Henry in Edinburgh to great acclaim. I think he's given up acting now and probably vomiting, to pursue his other great passion, motorbikes. Last I heard he was doing something with Triumph, lucky sod!

I also, rather sadly, said goodbye to my best friend Michael Palin this week. I finished his diaries and left him, poised on the cusp of the 1980's reflecting on whether he'd had his creative peak. I shall miss him and his wife, Helen and his children and all his friends, Python and non-Python. I've even stopped hating him for being so successful now, so familiar have we become over the years 1970 - 79. I suspect a sequel, but I already miss my daily fix of Palin. So I shall do what any other jilted person would do in these circumstances. If M. Palin can no longer satisfy me, I shall rebound. I already have my lustful eye on another Best Friend. He seduced me with a cheeky little book title - Will and Me. I was further titillated by the temptation of owning a signed copy from last summer's Edinburgh Book Festival, the tease. His name is Dominic Dromgool. Coincidentally, he's also recently replaced Mark Rylance as the new Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. And I'm sure he'll welcome me with open... er... pages. Palin? Palin who.