The Man Who Speaks in Anagrams
(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.)
Palin: 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.
Idle: Taht si crreoct.
Palin: Do you enjoy it?
Idle: I stom certainly od. Revy chum so.
Palin: And what's your name?
Idle: Hamrag - Hamrag Yatlerot.
Palin: Well, Graham, nice to have you on the show. Now, where do you come from?
Idle: Bumcreland.
Palin: Cumberland?
Idle: Stah't it sepricely.
Palin: And I believe you're working on an anagram version of Shakespeare?
Idle: Sey, sey - taht si crreoct, er - ta the mnemot I'm wroking on 'The Mating of the Wersh'.
Palin: 'The Mating of the Wersh'? By William Shakespeare?
Idle: Nay, by Malliwi Rapesheake.
Palin: And what else?
Idle: 'Two Netlemeng of Verona', 'Twelfth Thing','The Chamrent of Venice'....
Palin: Have you done 'Hamlet'?
Idle: 'Thamle'. 'Be ot or bot ne ot, tath is the nestquoi.'
Palin: And what is your next project?
Idle: 'Ring Kichard the Thrid'.
Palin: I'm sorry?
Idle: 'A shroe! A shroe! My dingkom for a shroe!'
Palin: Ah, Ring Kichard, yes... but surely that's not an anagram, that's a spoonerism.
Idle: If you're going to split hairs, I'm going to piss off. (Exit)
Continue to the next sketch... Anagram Quiz