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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Sam Wollaston

‘I said goodbye to Heath Ledger at this urinal’: a stroll round Terry Gilliam’s pivotal places

‘He said, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this”’ … Gilliam in the Horseshoe, where he last saw Ledger.
‘He said, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this”’ … Gilliam in the Horseshoe, where he last saw Ledger. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Down an alley in Covent Garden, on a building that was once a banana warehouse, there is a blue plaque. “Monty Python, Film Maker, Lived Here, 1976-1987,” reads the inscription. It’s easy to miss: the plaque is not at eye level as they normally are, but up on the first floor, almost as if the blue plaque committee lost confidence in their uncharacteristic joke. Or perhaps John Cleese put it up.

Terry Gilliam arrives. I like his jacket. It looks like it’s been stitched together from bits of blankets. “Me too,” he says. “I got it 30 years ago in a secondhand store in New York.” We’re going to wander around London, revisiting places that have played significant parts in his career, as he approaches his 85th birthday.

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