A Peek at Python

Monty Python

Describing Monty Python in one article is like summarising Shakespeare in a media-friendly soundbite, or spending three days in the lap of the gods then writing a letter about it to the ‘Reader’s Digest’.

So I’m not going to do it.

Instead, I’ll backtrack to an evening in the company of one Terry Gilliam – a sort of open conference, if you will. And while most of the talk was dedicated to his time as the bad boy of directing, there came that inevitable moment when he was asked about the Pythons.

Terry shrugs. He’s amazed people still go on about it. After all, most of it was just six lads throwing silly ideas around. It certainly wasn’t meant to be watched by future generations, discussed, even – ugh – analysed with director’s commentaries and whatnot. But hey, it’s nice to be appreciated. And it ain’t done the bank balance any harm.

Cue another inevitable question: ‘What’s your current relationship with the others?’ Terry chuckles. ‘It’s no longer sexual – we’re too old now – but we do bump into each other sometimes. No chance of a reunion, no point anyway, it was very much a part of that time.’ Which is clearly over.

Mr Gilliam is both wondrously charming and refreshingly confident, a guy whose directing career has, with respect, been so up and down, being so blasé about the one moment that was most definitely up. About some of his best-loved work. About the work that – let’s face it – gave him a leg-up into directing in the first place.

And yet, he has a point.

’Cause watching Flying Circus reruns is like going back to punk and seeing what it was really like. Sure there was The Pistols and The Clash, but there was also Anti-Pasti and Peter and the Test Tube Babies. I remember John Cleese himself admitting, ‘There were six of us, so if you tried something and it didn’t work you’d always blame it on the others…When I wrote Fawlty Towers I worked much harder.’ (Sorry Connie.)

It isn’t just the patchiness that irks now, it’s the sheer length of the sketches. Hell, they make French and Saunders look like The Fast Show. ‘The Larch… The Larch… The Larch.’ Even that dead parrot routine is just one joke spread over several years. (I much preferred their own Secret Policeman’s Ball pastiche: ‘This parrot is dead.’/’You’re right, here’s a refund.’/’Well you can’t say Mrs Thatcher hasn’t changed anything about this country.’) And the cheese-shop-that-doesn’t-sell-any-cheese thing drags too. (Incidentally, there was a pastiche of this as well and it came from the mighty Young Ones: ‘Good morning, is this a cheese shop?’/ ‘No.’/’Well that’s that sketch knackered then innit?’)

Python passionates will wag their fingers at me and smirk into their Pernods: ‘That’s the point you infidel’… And I concur. But thirty years after Not The Nine O’Clock News pioneered the quickie…

A more serious prob – as Ben Elton (in classic do-gooder mode) pointed out – is sexism. Show me a Pythonette who ain’t either a crabby old housewife or just plain naked. Cleese again: ‘We were straight out of Oxbridge. Women were still a mystery.’ Or Carol Cleveland: ‘In rehearsals Michael Palin’d says, “Sorry darling but…”’ Darling? I rest my case… Fast-forward to The Holy Grail -remember the scene with the nuns? The first time I watched the film, my video packed in at this point. Destiny, probably.

So why do we still watch Monty Python?

Because they’re heroes. Because they’re The Sex Pistols and The Clash all rolled into one, with a bit of The Damned thrown in for good measure.

‘Cause like punk, Python has to be seen in the context of its time, a time where comedy meant glittery suits and glistening teeth and Bob Monkhouse’s mother-in-law (I like Bob too, but that’s another story.) A time when the rudest comedy ever got was Benny Hill (who makes Python look like Germaine Greer, but that’s another story too). A time when comedy was desperately, worringly, manically in need of a good kick up its metaphorical bottom. A kick these fellows were more than happy to provide.

For as we yawn through some of the team’s ‘off’ moments, it’s easy to forget just how influential they were. And remain. Love ’em or hate ’em, what you can’t do – as a comedy fan, which I assume you are – is ignore ’em. There’d been nothing like it before (with the possible exception of The Goons, who they’re swift to praise); and – don’t let lesser comics try to persuade you otherwise – there’s never been anything like it since. Even The Young Ones (always, always my favourite laughter-fest) suffered exploding doors and exploding ovens and exploding fridges, but never an exploding fatso. And while Vyv may’ve got his head knocked off by a train, he never got splayed across the living-room table to have his liver removed. Speaking of afore-mentioned restaurant scene, Palin fondly recalls how the room was going to be used for a wedding reception the next day and they had to get all the muck off the walls first. He also boasts that over the next twenty-five years, in which comedy’s gotten more and more extreme, no one’s ever managed to make something quite so repulsive. He’s right. And he’s right to be proud of that.

Look, if you think the telly shows are a bit hit’n’miss (and they are), have a gander at the films. Yeah, I know the first one was called And Now For Something Completely Different and that was pretty stupid really seeing as all they were doing was repeating Flying Circus sketches. And I know The Holy Grail’s ultimately a sketch show too, it just happens to feature recurrent characters – but that’s cool ’cause it means the humour gains from the cumulative synergy. The part where the knight gets his arms and legs cut off but continues to fight (‘’Tis but a scratch’) is just hilarious.

Then there’s Life of Brian, and if you think that’s blasphemous you’re missing the point ’cause it’s criticising organised religion rather than religion itself. And that’s beside the point too; the point is it’s funny. Remember the Jehovah bit, and if you don’t you clearly don’t know your Python from your pint-glass. It was also influential – Not The Nine O’Clock News did a lovely piece attacking a Life of Christ movie for offending a primarily Python-worshipping country. And so we come to The Meaning of Life, the nutsiest, gutsiest of the lot. By the way, one of the wickedest scenes of the whole movie – Martin Luther getting excited over frothy mediaeval maidens – was cut because Terry Jones thought it upset the overall rhythm. There’s method in their madness…

So we can look down our noses at them now. But they happened. And in my humble, Gilliam-loving opinion, I’m bleedin’ grateful.