Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #32

Like most people in full time employment; I spent most of my working day on Thursday constantly refreshing the Telegraph’s web page.

They had, rather kindly, set up live coverage of the press conference announcing the reformation of Monty Python.

Unless of course, you are my employer, in which case; I most certainly didn’t do that, I’ve just put it in here for comic effect. I was actually doing that filing you told me to do, honest. Don’t check that it’s done or anything, take my word for it.

With every click of the ‘refresh’ button (which I didn’t click boss, honest), my heart was in my mouth – I knew what the announcement was going to be – everyone did by this point.

In a world where ‘spoiler alerts’ are now a thing; nothing is ever a surprise – I’ve just about managed to last this long without finding out the ending of the Sixth Sense.

When I watched the film I stopped it ten minutes before the end to make sure I didn’t spoil it for myself. We all knew that this ‘surprise announcement’ was more than likely going to be about a new stage show and yet I still couldn’t wait to hear the news.

It was a momentous moment for me – like if the Beatles reformed or Richard and Judy got back together.

Like most comedy performers, my first real taste of live comedy came from re-enacting Python sketches at school drama nights.

In fact my friends and I were so confident of our ability to breathe new life into these classic sketches that we organised an entire night of it.

It’s testament to the quality of the material that the twelve disinterested parents and two teachers who actually attended were howling with laughter, and also testament to our stupidity that we thought we could bring something new to them. You can’t, they’re perfect. The best you can hope for is a passable Eric Idle impression in ‘Nudge, Nudge’.

I was about 11 when I first came across Monty Python and like most people it took me a little while to twig that it wasn’t one bloke.

My first encounter was having a friend recite extracts from The Holy Grail – word perfect like all true fans. I could never really comprehend what he was telling me but it sounded ridiculous and therefore right up my street.

Eventually I nabbed a copy on VHS (that’s right kids!) and sat down to watch it one Saturday morning. I watched that film three times that morning. Dragging in various other members of my family for the subsequent viewings, it was by far the funniest thing I had ever seen.

What followed was a love affair that has last longer than the average Judd Apatow film. I devoured everything I could of the Pythons’ work.

For a long time my only knowledge of their sketches was the film ‘And Now For Something Completely Different’ and a cassette recording of one of their LPs.

They were all bursting with ideas and silly asides – one of my absolute favourite audio jokes will always be “and now for a massage from the Swedish Prime Minister…” (Cue the sound of hands slapping flesh).

I know Python was always lauded for being new, different and game-changing but it’s easy for things like that to get diluted over time (Emmerdale, anyone?)

But the quality of Python was and still is remarkably high. Yes, some of the sketches aren’t as good as others but that’s just how things work; some things are good, some things aren’t – what’s more important is that every sketch is full of rich, silly ideas.

Where else could you see a sketch about a criminal who believes he’s being chased by a 200ft hedgehog called ‘Spiny Normal’ or an 8ft Princess Anne in a life or death struggling with breakfast, harpooning the toast?

The thing I love about Python is the silliness. It is relentlessly silly.

It’s easy to over-intellectualise things by saying they were from Oxbridge and reinventing the sketch show for a modern, younger audience, but the overwhelming feeling I get from watching either the TV show or the films, is that it’s six grown men behaving in ways they really should have grown out of.

For the most precise evidence of this may I direct your attention to Terry Gilliam’s only musical excursion – ‘I’ve Got Two Legs’.

Thinking about Monty Python and their impact on me has made me realise just why I got into doing comedy. To be silly.

When you’re writing and performing comedy – whether stand up or sketch, it’s easy to get worked up about it.

You’re always struggling to make things as funny and as good as they can be and while that is absolutely the right approach, it can be incredibly easy to overlook the most obvious thing – have a laugh.

It’s clear from looking at the Pythons – both in the past and during the recent press conference – these are a group of grown men that sit around and make each other laugh, and to me it shows in the work.

Jolly Mixtures – the sketch group I’m in – has been going from strength to strength recent and I really hope we can achieve something similar. Yes, we may not have the Argument sketch, we may never hold a live organ transplant and, sadly, we will never be crucified but as long the audience laugh and can see us enjoying it, then I’ll be very happy.

So come Monday, I will be sat at my desk, frantically trying to gain any sort of traction on Ticketmaster (I won’t really, boss).

I’m more than aware I will be up against an army of Python fans also trying to get tickets, but at least I can relax in the knowledge that even if I can’t get a ticket; I have hours of original footage I can revisit and it will definitely be as fresh as it ever was. Not that I’d watch it at work, obviously.

• Rob Gilroy can be seen next as his alter ego, Jerry Bucham, at The Stand, Newcastle on Thursday 28 November.
• Rob and his sketch group – Jolly Mixtures – will be performing a brand new show at The Cluny 2, Newcastle, on Wednesday 4 December.