My interest in comedy, writing, performing and silly walks all came from one place: the surreally irreverent British comedy troupe Monty Python. After years and years (and years and years) of talking about getting together for a reunion of the five surviving members – Graham Chapman passed in 1989 – it is finally happening. At a London press conference mediated by Warwick Davis, the Python members announced they would come together for a one night only performance at London’s O2 Arena on July 1, 2014. I have less than a year to squeal in excitement!
The show, which was called Monty Python Live (Mostly) in a press release (via THR), will of course contain some of the material that has made the group so memorable over the past 45 years. John Cleese, often the least willing to resort to reunion opportunities, is sure they’ll perform the infamous Dead Parrot sketch, as well as the Crunchy Frog sketch, but they want to throw a curveball at fans.
"The main [risk] is that the audience knows the script better than we do," Cleese said. So while fans will get the sketches they all know and love, they will all get a "modern, topical, Pythonesque twist" to keep things interesting. No one expects the Spanish Inqui…I mean, a twist! I like the idea of a remixed set. Having seen a performance of Spamalot a few years back, the worst part was the guy sitting next to me who had memorized the entire performance, and mumbled it all under his breath.
While no film projects are planned, as getting together for extended periods is as hard for the quintet now as it ever was, the performance will definitely be filmed, and there’s a good chance it’ll get aired on TV in the following months. Or at least released on DVD and Blu-ray. I’d like to pre-order mine already.
Joking about what else the audience can expect, one of the Pythons said there would be twerking at the show, or possibly tweeting, since he gets the two mistaken for each other. And it was added should reaction to the show be strong, there is a slight possibility that they could meet up for more stage shows.
Though they got together in parts for the Chapman pseudo-biopic A Liar’s Autobiography, it’s been a while since they’ve all gotten together on stage. I’m sure it would be too much to hope that this new show will be anything nearly as good as Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, but we can hope. There’s no need to be "Ni"-gative anyway.
Below is "Four Yorkshiremen," my favorite sketch from Hollywood Bowl, which incidentally wasn’t even originally a Python sketch. (It was written for At Last the 1948 Show.)
