They didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.
The first question from the media after Mony Python announced their new stage show, “one down, five to go”, was from a Spanish journalist, wanting to know why they had reformed after all this time.
“We’re all trying to pay off Terry Jones’ mortgage,” replied Eric Idle. “Because we all live at his house,” added Michael Palin. When the journalist tried for a more serious answer, Cleese warned her, in Spanish, to beware of llamas.
Eric Idle said if they left it much longer it would be too late. But the clever thing was that “we waited for demand to die down”.
The press conference was exactly what you’d expect. A bit of information, and a lot of laughs.
First, the facts.
The five surviving members of Monty Python, the Beatles of comedy with a combined age of just 357, are reuniting next year for a stage show at London’s O2 arena, featuring their old material with a modern twist, songs, dancing girls, Terry Gilliam animations and an audience of ecstatic baby boomers mouthing the words to the Dead Parrot sketch.
Their last full stage show was at the Hollywood Bowl in 1980, which Cleese said was the happiest moment of his career.
The basic reason for reforming seems to be, they still find each other funny, and they wanted to see whether other people do too.
“Comedy, music, pathos and a tiny bit of ancient sex” would feature in the show, the group promised.
Rumours of anything more than that are still rumours. They agreed they wouldn’t mind a “camping holiday” tour of the show to Europe. They demurred at the idea of taking it to the US, because they tried to avoid failed states. They reminisced over old ideas for a new film.
John Cleese said he ocasionally had new ideas for comedy sketches, but never wrote them because there was no show to write them for.
They had varying opinions of taking the stage show to Australia. Terry Jones said he’d love to, because he loves the place.
Michael Palin joked that they could do it in Darwin or Coober Pedy. Eric Idle said he’d prefer the Sydney Opera House. And John Cleese said the problem with the idea was that there were planets closer to the UK than Australia was.
So it seems unlikely, because they’re all still very busy with their solo work, as they kept reminding each other.
But the show will be filmed and “we’ll obviously try to flog it later,” said Eric Idle, who will direct the production.
Jones said the idea of performing on stage made him very anxious, and Palin said he had worried that it wasn’t possible to be silly past the age of 70.
But it turned out it was, he said.
“When we have dinner together we laugh more than we do in any other time of our lives,” Cleese said.
“We may not like each other but somehow we’re very funny together,” said Gilliam.
They decided to do a “best of” show because they didn’t want to disappoint the audience, he said. But at the same time they didn’t want it to be too predictable.
“At a rock concert, when they say we’re going to do some music from our new album, that’s when you go to the bathroom,” Idle said.
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“It’s a very difficult decision to take,” Cleese said, saying he saw Neil Diamond get booed at a concert for doing new material.
However, some material will never have been seen on stage, such as musical numbers from the Meaning of Life film. “We are aware that we have to make a big show and fill the stage,” Idle said.
At one point they will attempt to perform a sketch with Graham Chapman, the Monty Python member who died more than 20 years ago.
Cleese will not be doing the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch, because it is quite impossible with an artificial hip. However, he and Palin were likely to revive the Dead Parrot sketch.
“The main danger is that the audience remember the script better than we do,” Cleese said.
Tickets go on sale on Monday November 25 at www.montypythonlive.com.
– Sydney Morning Herald
