[indistinct chattering]
[audience cheering]
[man]
-Shh? -[all chuckle quietly]
[music plays]
We've got ten minutes of overture?
Three minutes.
-[applause] -[chorus hums "Sit On My Face"]
[all singing indistinct]
[audience claps to the beat]
[all continue, indistinct]
♪ Life can be fine If we both 69 ♪
♪ If we sit on our faces In all sorts of places And play ♪
♪ Until we're blown away ♪
[applause]
[audience cheering]
Thank you, gents, have a good show.
-Thank you very much. -Thank you.
[audience cheering]
[Idle] I have never stopped being on stage,
I continued to be stuck at being a comedian, sad and pathetic.
[Gillam] Laughter is the fuel of the Pythons,
without laughter they die,
sad, horrible, old men in their lonely mansions.
[Cleese] When you start, you go out with every audience
you don't know if they're gonna hate you or not.
That's why comedians talk about dying.
[Palin] There are religions, there are companies
which are desperately trying to control
what we are, what we think.
And we're just saying, "Up yours!"
[Jones] It is fun to be together,
we do have a good time when we finally get together,
it's just such a nightmare getting everybody together.
[indistinct chatter]
[whistle blows]
[matador music plays]
[man] Olé!
[indistinct chattering]
Python is weird.
It's weird that it survived,
it's weird it went on television,
it's weird it went on in America,
it's weird it goes on, it's not normal.
It should be forgotten, it's 45 years or more.
[panting]
It's...
[Cleese] Monty Python's Flying Circus.
[Palin] Welcome to the Ronald Reagan memorial ball,
here in the pretty little LA suburb of Hollywood.
♪ I put on women's clothing ♪
♪ And hang around in bars ♪
[Palin] Part of the absurdity of Python,
it was just about universal human behaviour.
It was poking fun, it wasn't going head on at a target,
in any shape or form,
it was playing with people, making people look silly,
making people in power look silly.
Oh, I've had a bitch of a morning in the High Court.
Oh, I could stamp my little feet
the way those councillors carry on.
-Don't I know it, love. -Oh, dear...
Objection here, objection there...
Must be why people all over the world still like Python,
because it does debunk
and, sort of, undercut pomposity in all shape and form.
I'll tell you what I want,
I want a Last Supper with one Christ,
12 disciples, no kangaroos,
no trampoline acts,
by Thursday lunch or you don't get paid!
Bloody fascist!
Look, I'm the bloody pope, I am.
It does show that without destroying,
without asking you to sign up to revolution,
allows you to make fun of wherever you are
and whatever circumstances.
-What do you want? -Well, I was told--
Don't give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
-What?! -Shut your festering gob, you tit!
Your type makes me puke!
You vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous pervert!
Listen, I came here for an argument.
Oh... oh, I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
Oh, I see, terribly sorry.
You want room 12A next door.
I see, thank you very much.
Not at all.
[indistinct chattering]
[chatter continues]
[Palin] We're in a meeting. We're just about to read the script.
It's the opening of the show.
Terry is in the audience and receives a phone call.
[woman] Commencing from about 20 minutes before curtain,
he appears on screen at regular intervals going, "Hello!"
[all] Hello]
It felt like no time at all had passed since we did that sketch.
There's something about the brain, you're in that room again,
and it's the same as 30 years have gone by,
but it just felt familiar.
[dramatic music]
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,
our chief weapon is surprise!
Surprise and fear, fear and...
Our two weapons are fear and surprise.
Our three weapons are,
fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency
and almost fanatical devotion-- Oh, four!
Four, amongst our weapons are such elements-- I'll come in again.
[chattering]
[woman] Celia, I come from Spain, why now?
Please don't tell me it's because of the money.
Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition!
I think the answer is, we're all trying to pay for Terry Jones' mortgage.
-Yeah. -Terry's mortgage.
[man] Is this a one and only?
Will, at first it'll be the one and only.
It depends how long people like Eric and Michael live, really.
[man #2] I imagine one of the reasons this hasn't happened before
is maybe it'd be just milking the old material,
have you had to overcome any sense of guilt?
I think the cow died years ago.
[laughter]
[man #3] You've obviously got a massive legacy behind you,
are you worried that you might mess it up
or you'd have a lot of angry fans coming after you?
If we left it too long, it would be too late.
We don't have that long, do we?
-No, we don't. -Sixty years between us?
[inaudible conversations]
[Gilliam] Python never really did things for the money.
It was nice making money doing things occasionally,
but that wasn't the motive for doing things,
except for the O2 show,
it was the first time it became,
"Ah, we need to make some money".
[Palin] We had gotten ourselves into a lawsuit,
which was to do with royalties on merchandising
for a man who'd been one of the producers of Holy Grail.
Seven years he's been pursuing us,
seven years, it's cost us a million quid with lawyers
just to turn up and say, "No, that's not true,"
just to defend yourself.
And we were kind of laughing about it,
I mean, nobody was in despair, we were just...
Insane!
Why didn't we settle, five, six years ago?
[Idle] And so, we need to get out of this mess,
who could possibly help us?
And then I remembered my old friend Jim Beach,
he flew in from Switzerland, he sat in a meeting
and he said after, "You're fucked."
He said, "You really are in trouble."
But he said, "If you did one show at O2,
you could just pay off all this debt that you have."
And that was just a breakthrough,
everybody said, "Yes" at once. It was fantastic.
I thought, well...
16,000, it'll be a fun, interesting experience,
maybe we'll be able to sell three or four nights.
It's gonna be 50,000 probably all over the UK,
and then we went on sale
and suddenly we were world news and we were terribly tickled
because we'd been forgotten for so many years.
It was terribly funny.
Monty Python, are they still going?
They're doing ten shows. Do you wanna go?
Ten shows? Wow, that's pretty amazing.
They must be coining it in.
I bet it's expensive.
But I mean, who wants to see that again, really?
I mean it was really funny in the 60s.
Well, the first show sold out in 40 seconds.
Wow, that's pretty amazing, I mean...
Still, a bunch of wrinkly old men
trying to relive their youth and make a lot of money.
The best one died years ago!
Maybe back in the 70s it was fantastic.
I mean, it was the funniest thing.
[Palin] All of us, with the possible exception of Gilliam,
were brought up on stage performances,
that's where we were bloodied,
that was our apprenticeship at university,
writing and performing our own material
in front of a live audience.
["I Like Traffic Lights" plays]
[Palin] We got the taste for live at the Lanchester,
I think if was the Belgrave Theatre Coventry,
which is a nice theatre,
and it was just a buzz, it was just a joy.
It was kind of fairly obvious to us all
that we needed to make a bit more money
'cause Python didn't pay very much.
We all had to... six of us had to share the fees,
and the fees were ridiculously low,
so what else could we do to augment our earnings?
So, a stage tour was one of the things that was mentioned.
[Gilliam] Travelling around England was quite nice
and being with the group was exciting,
something one had always dreamed of doing,
you're in the circus, you're a little travelling troupe.
You're heading from town to town,
one-night stands... all these things that one dreams about.
It never goes quite like that.
It's always much more shambolic and messy.
[Jones] We had a driver who missed the turnings.
[laughs]
And we said,
"You missed that turning!"
And we later learned that he was short-sighted.
He couldn't see...
I don't know how many dates, 14, 15?
And it was pretty rough early
because it was usually chaos getting the film cues right,
and we had an idiot doing the sound.
As far as I remembered, we'd opened in Southampton,
and then we went on to Brighton the next night,
and I remember that fairly distinctly,
because I had not wanted to do the silly walks,
it was never my favourite sketch.
And I never quite understood why everyone loved it so much,
it was a bit of a mystery to me, really.
And when I did it the first night in Southampton,
it laid a complete egg.
There I was, capering around on stage
in this embarrassing way in total silence,
and when I came off I said,
"I told you so, I'm never doing that fucking sketch again."
I said, "I'm out of here, I'm not doing it."
They all said, "Do it one more time," I said, "No, that's it."
And then they went on, like they always do with me, "Please, do it one more time".
So, I did it the next night at Brighton
and the bloody audience laughed and laughed and laughed,
so I was saddled with doing that wretched sketch.
You see, as Defence, Education, Housing, Health,
Social Security, Silly Walks,
they're all supposed to get the same.
But last year, the government spent less on silly walks
than it did on industrial reorganisation.
We're supposed to get 348 million pounds a year
to cover our entire silly walks program.
-Coffee? -Yes, please.
[loud cheers and applause]
[music playing]
[Palin] In the back of my mind was we can't just presume,
because we're 70 and we're Python,
everyone is gonna come along and say,
"Hey, great, they're still alive and can make comedy".
We've got be as funny as we ever were.
We've got to be able to make people laugh
as much as they did when they first saw the sketches, if not more.
There's gonna be a lot of bullshit out there tonight.
That's why we've got the high heels on,
to deal with stepping in the bullshit.
[Gilliam] We ended Python 30 years ago,
and I thought we ended on a few highs,
and we ended with a bit of dignity
and it wasn't going to be a bunch of old farts
trying to scrabble together to get some money.
We'd been classy, we quit when we were still good.
We mustn't be embarrassing,
it'd be awful if we'd come back and it's just embarrassing.
[audience cheering]
He's got a cheer straight away.
[Idle] This is our very first dress rehearsal,
things can go wrong in a dress rehearsal,
we have got a technical name for that in the theatre,
it's called a "fuck-up".
The warm up is always good, aren't they?
Why don't they get them here?
It was quite good this one.
I think he should be in the show, I think he's good enough
to do some of the smaller parts in the show.
[Idle] There was a lot of doubt, my ass was on the line.
They'd blame me totally, so I was very concerned.
It can only go downhill from here.
And it does.
[speaking in Spanish]
[all cheering in Spanish]
[in Spanish]
[Cleese snickers]
"La..." Oh, never mind.
Normally, Graham Chapman would be saying,
"We can't show it because the video has gone blank."
There we are... a bit.
[laughter]
That's fucking nice-- Now, that's 40 minutes of stand-up.
We could try a picture of a llama, could we?
[Idle] Yeah.
On the video, is it still a blank...
No, no, it's all working beautifully now.
The moment you came back in, it was all up.
[man] And now, Radio 4 will explode.
[explosion]
Uh, no, it won't...
It didn't explode. Oh, dear.
[laughter]
[Cleese] Oh, well...
[man] Yeah, I think, from the outside... Oops.
And there was a big panic,
"It doesn't work, we have to change this, change that."
It was not at all good.
I promise.
Well, anyway...
-Nice to see you. -See you later.
The LH2, that I found quite difficult
because you suddenly realise the dimensions of the stage,
a lot of technical stuff,
suddenly I thought, "Oh, my God, this is gonna overwhelm us."
That's when I began to think, "Oh, this is gonna be right up to the wire."
[indistinct chattering]
-[gong resonates] -[whimsical music plays]
[Cleese] One of the things about the O2,
is of course, it's so expensive to hire
that you can't hire it
and have a full dress rehearsal the night before.
So the first time you perform there,
you haven't been in the theatre 24 hours,
at four a.m. the equipment started to arrive.
We had a short rehearsal at about three.
I like Chinese.
I come from Montreal, Canada.
We come from Goteborg, Sweden.
Flew in yesterday from Switzerland.
We came from Italy to see the Monty Python live mostly.
I came from Serbia to see Monty Python today.
We've come from Barcelona to see Monty Python.
Yeah, man!
You realise in the end
we are rather lucky to get away with doing our jokes,
having fun together.
I don't think you'd see any Pythons going around saying, "We're legends," you know.
"We have tossed aside the barriers of comedy
and created something new and wonderful."
That's what other people say, we know that's bullshit.
[siren]
-[woman] There's a siren... -Oh, yeah.
That was Terry Gilliam being rushed to the Arena.
[man on P.A.] Ladies and gents, we're arriving at London Bridge,
alight from the front of the boat,
please take all personal belongings with you.
[Gilliam] My stomach went into my heart
when "we", the group,
agreed that "we" would do a show.
'Cause that's the last thing I wanted.
Gotta be on the move 'cause I'm late.
[Gilliam] At the same time, the group is the group is the group.
It's as simple as that and one feels one's gotta be part of it.
-Ready? Way to go. -Sorry, well done, thanks a lot.
Cheers. Enjoy it.
Look at them! They're already pouring in.
[indistinct chattering]
It's ten minutes to six,
and in another hour and 40 minutes,
we will go on and there will be 50,000 people out there.
Python doesn't do big stuff. It's quiet.
People sitting there chatting, is what it's about.
So, we've chosen this space,
which seems just about right, you know.
A few members of the family and a couple of friends,
and that will be it.
I'm really looking forward to it,
really looking forward to it.
I just want to keep this feeling I feel at the moment
for the next hour and 40 minutes.
[man] You alright, John?
I think it was a llama.
[laughter]
[Cleese] When you first go out on stage, if you try to make people laugh,
and you fail, it's basically humiliating.
Even if you tell a bad joke at a party,
or tell a joke badly and nobody laughs,
you know, there's a moment afterwards of silence
and then somebody says something to try to sort of break the embarrassment.
When you're trying to be funny in front of a lot of people and they are not laughing,
it's pretty terrible.
[whimsical music]
Good evening, hello.
[man] It's what it's all been building to. You ready?
Oh, no. It's afterwards we're building to.
Yes, the mindless adulation we need.
I suggested it to them, I can't say it's my idea,
I just said, "Why don't you do this?"
They were all getting on so well when they met at the end of August,
that everybody seemed to agree, I was astonished.
People are arriving, go shoot them.
Documentaries,
you know, you are supposed to observe, not interfere.
I think you, of all people, would know that the observer
interferes with the result, doesn't he?
-[man] It's quantum mechanics. -Quantum mechanics! Hello?
You don't even know what a quantum mechanic looks like, do you?
[audience cheering, whistling]
[loud applause and cheers]
Shh! Shh!
[Gilliam]
[Cleese]
[theme from 2001: Space Odyssey plays]
Fuck off, John.
[all laughing]
[music continues]
[whimsical music]
[sounds of glass shattering]
[loud cheers and applause]
[Idle] I wasn't doing anything. I didn't have a gig lined up,
because of Spamalot, and musical comedy and theatre
and all that experience,
I would probably be the best to take it on.
[Gilliam] Eric, would it work to bring the flower arranging up there?
No, no, no, don't start fucking with the order.
This will work very well in the order.
My instinct from very early on was very much to trust Eric.
And it was clear to me that Eric was going to add
a song and dance element to it,
which seemed to me the way to fill this huge arena.
[indistinct chatter]
Nobody's ever filled up O2, that size space, with a revue.
I went to France and I wrote for two weeks.
Then I thought, well, I think what I need to do now is make this a musical.
And it will look like a show,
and then we'll come on and do our bits.
Can you name a single song or dance
from the first three series?
It was a completely different kind of show,
the tone was different,
there was enormous amount of Eric's favourite filth.
It was a wildly different show,
except there were a few sketches, famous old sketches.
[indistinct singing]
[man] We get John on behind with the parrot hidden,
and then he goes... [vocalizing]
I wish to complain about this parrot.
And we all run off and the parrot sketch takes place.
I think Eric always had a problem being the single Python writing on his own.
I don't think you can sort of underestimate how that must feel.
So, I think Eric feels that he's got something to prove,
to the rest of us.
♪ Some things in life are bad ♪
♪ They can really Make you mad ♪
You see, if I'm just doing this, they're lemons.
You know, it's like they've got nothing to do,
but if we all sing it together, arms around each other,
you know, there's a kind of a nice... [whooshing]
within it for them as a farewell.
They didn't invite me for about 15 years to meetings, I don't know why.
-I was in L.A. so they'd meet... -[man] Yeah, quite.
They're dreadful at business, they're really dreadful.
They need me, they need me.
We can create this sort of huge idea
that the universe itself is expanding and expanding.
♪ We're 30,000 light years From galactic central point ♪
♪ We go 'round every Two hundred million years ♪
♪ And our galaxy is only one Of millions of billions ♪
♪ In this amazing And expanding universe ♪
[man] Now, there are many reasons why I find that song scientifically inaccurate.
This statement that space time expands at the speed of light,
well, there was a period of exponential expansion
between ten to the minus-36 and ten to the minus-32 seconds after the Big Bang,
called inflation in which...
[screams]
[man] Cut, please.
Very good.
-Excellent fall. -[laughter]
You could give him a bit longer than that.
[people cheering]
I have been friends with Professor Brian Cox for a few years, and we have a lot of fun.
And we drink a lot of Ruinart and discuss the universe.
[Idle] That's exactly how it should be.
How did you come to be doing this silly joke?
I think you might've been drunk.
You sent me an email saying,
"Would you be able to get Stephen Hawking to do a gag?"
I said, "Yeah."
And I emailed him but the funny thing was,
within about a minute or two minutes, an email came back saying,
"Yes, big Python fan, definitely," straight from Steven.
[Idle] We have a surprise for you.
We'd like to play you a song, if that's okay.
Can we do that?
♪ Just remember That you're standing ♪
♪ On a planet that's evolving ♪
♪ And you're revolving At 900-miles an hour ♪
♪ The sun and you and me and All the stars that we can see ♪
♪ Are moving At a million miles a day ♪
♪ In an outer spiral arm At 400,000-miles an hour ♪
♪ In the galaxy we call The Milky Way ♪
♪ Earth ♪
The bit where I get run over is the bit where I point out
that space time can expand faster than the speed of light,
and start talking about inflationary cosmology and...
[all laughing]
[Hawking] I think you are being pedantic.
[laughter]
[Cox] We should put that in.
I knew Eric had written this in
and, um, you know,
I think my feeling was, "If he can pull it off, great."
[Cox] It's better to say that the Earth sweeps out
equal areas and equal times,
Kepler knew that back in 1609.
Then, the statement that "space time expands at the speed of light",
well, there was a period of exponential expansion
between ten to the minus-36 and ten to the minus-32 seconds
after the Big Bang called inflation, in which--
[screams]
[Hawking] I think you are being pedantic.
[indistinct chattering]
Oh, God...
How did it go?
Yeah, it's fine, you know. Yeah, that was good.
Gosh... I'll be back.
Eric felt that if it didn't work, it'll be all down to him.
He may have felt he let us down,
'cause there's a very strong feeling in Eric to be loved by the group.
[indistinct chattering]
-[woman] Is it going okay? -Yes, you can tell it now.
-I just wanna go and get-- -[Palin] What happened there?
-What? -[Palin] That was very nice.
-What? -At the end of the lion tamer.
-Was I just going on a bit long? -No, no...
I was gonna say I wanna be a marine surveyor.
I was gonna play one joke on them and see if it worked.
But, no, it was very funny.
I'm so amused that they all got it.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Can I tell you something?
What?
I never wanted to be a lion tamer.
[laughter]
-[cheering] -I wanted...
Well, I want to be a lumberjack!
[whimsical music begins]
Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia!
I had all my flies undone and then realised,
I did two or three of them up
and that got a small laugh somewhere.
♪ I cut down trees I skip and jump ♪
♪ I like to press Wild flowers ♪
♪ I put on women's clothing ♪
♪ And hang around in bars ♪
Originally, Python was, it was blokes at university.
So, if you had a woman, you wanted to do a silly woman,
probably done by the bloke,
if it was a sensible woman, a serious woman, it would be done by Jo Kendall, or Carol.
So, when you wanted something...
The great thing about Carol is...
I'm the real one.
-You can be very silly. -I can be silly.
-And outrageous, and serious... -Yeah.
You did understand how to do it amazingly.
We never had to say, "Carol, no, do it this way".
[Carol] You see, now I'm finally...
finally I'm playing an old lady now.
I'm doing it now, so we got there eventually.
I'm not playing an old man, I am an old man.
When I'm on, I can tell to some extent what's going on,
but when I'm at the back, I can't hear the other guys' sketches properly,
and I can't hear the audience's reaction.
So, I don't know what works and what didn't work.
A Last Supper I commissioned from you,
and a Last Supper I want with 12 disciples.
And one Christ!
[audience laughs]
-One?! -Yes, one!
Now, what in heaven's name possessed you to paint this
with three Christs in it?
Eric and I missed a couple of lines in Michelangelo,
but otherwise it was good.
Lion tamer was very good,
Michael was very funny,
and the crunchy frog was alright.
Um, it was a little bit slow, actually.
Little bit slow. It needs a little more pace to it.
What, a raw frog?!
We use only the finest baby frogs...
[Jones] I was quite nervous about the first night,
because our memory's going, you see.
Oh dear, we don't get wiser as we get older, it's a myth.
...and lovingly frosted with glucose.
That's as may be, but it's still a frog! What else would it be?
[Cleese] Terry Jones did tell us all, he said,
"Look, my memory is beginning to go a bit."
I mean, he's still lovely in conversation, but there was something about...
Maybe he was scared, 'cause after all,
Terry hadn't been on stage for decades.
We've got a cut man in the wing for you.
-Oh, right... -No, for you.
Oh...
We've got a new cut man working.
Okay, right. Yeah, yeah.
I, uh, raised my guitar so violently
I hit my face.
A trickle of blood going down-- What the fuck's that?
[Gilliam] Oh, would've been a palace to us!
We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip.
[Jones] It was only when I wiped my hand
that I noticed that there was blood all over it.
And you kept acting and they all laughed, silly.
And they get a bit closer...
What do you have to do before they start getting worried,
have your head chopped off?
Our heads half-severed, but it was such a funny line.
Getting changed into what it's called a "pepper pot".
Uh... 'cause we think old ladies
look like pepper pots with their hats on.
[Gilliam] Terry was the most worrisome,
'cause Terry during rehearsals was just struggling.
And it was like, "Oh, this is not going to work," but by the time we got on stage,
he had found a way of making it work.
Smear of lipstick...
[woman] Does that feel too tight, Terry, no?
No.
I look like my mother... [laughs] basically.
And I kind of feel that, so...
Well, I don't talk like my mother.
[feminine voice] Bye. Bye. Oh, dear.
[Palin] And now, Radio four will explode.
[Jones] It was good to be back on stage again.
The audience was so welcoming and, uh, appreciative.
It's so... It was just wonderful to be there.
[Palin] Well, it's just gone eight o' clock,
and time for the penguin on top of your television set
to explode.
How did he know that was going to happen?
It was an inspired guess.
That Michael Palin, he knows everything.
He's been everywhere, hasn't he?
You ever watch any of those travel pro...
-programs. -[laughter]
If you're gonna be rude about me, I'm gonna switch you off.
The man, yeah.
The man. You hear that? I'm the man.
But it's not really me, it's just a part I play
in this humble little charade.
It's wonderful to see Mike being funny again.
You know, I mean, we make the joke constantly about his boring travel shows
because we know how brilliant he is.
[humming]
In the very first read through, he's like woof!
And he's flying, he's alive, he's sparkling,
his timing... everything about him is extraordinary.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Our chief weapon is surprise.
Surprise and fear, fear and surprise.
Our two weapons are fear and surprise.
Fear and surprise and ruthless...
Our three weapons are fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency,
and an almost fanatical devotion...
Four! Ah... I'll come in again.
Mike is the one that I find I enjoy, and always have enjoyed,
being most, because it's as though we were very much in tune with each other.
It's as though we watch each other,
and the playing is very flexible.
-[Palin] This is not an argument. -Yes, it is.
-No, it's just contradiction. -No, it isn't.
It is.
Sorry. [clears throat]
-[Palin] "It is not." -It is not.
[Palin] No, it is not. You just contradicted me.
-[Cleese] No, I didn't. -[Palin] Well, you did.
-[Cleese] No, I didn't. -You did just then.
-[Cleese] No, not at all. -Oh, this is futile.
-[Cleese] No, it isn't. -Yes, it is, I came here for a good argument.
[Cleese] No, you didn't. You came here for an argument.
An argument isn't just contradiction.
[Cleese] Well, it can be.
[Palin] John is such a key factor in the show,
I'm not saying Eric isn't or any of us aren't,
but John is... is really the--
Eric once said in an interview, you know,
"We're all funny, and all that, but on stage, John is the key man."
Now, you see, this is what I think is kind of...
Can't we go to cheese, somehow?
Yes, you could come back and say,
"Well, I've had a look, but we don't have any cheese."
Because there aren't that many...
-Cheese? I've got some cheese. -You've got some cheese?
-What cheese have you got? -Anything you want.
And then you go... No, no, no, no...
-And then we walk off. -This is pointless.
-I like this. -Yeah, that's nice.
[Palin] John, I think, throughout it,
wanted to work very, very hard to make it work.
He wasn't being difficult.
He was wary of himself as the oldest of us,
and he had a lot of work to do.
See you next year. Oops, sorry.
[laughter]
Oooh!
[Idle] They only had three-days rehearsal.
I had them for three days
and Terry Gilliam fucked off to Paris for one of them
to give interviews on his film!
Which was good, 'cause he's only a troublemaker.
What?
Michelangelo, the finest Renaissance artist,
best known for his works
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
[Gilliam] It's always dangerous when Python gets back together
because we've been separate for so long,
each of us becoming more powerful
in our little sphere of whatever work we do.
And we are used to people, you know, doing what we say.
[unintelligible]
What?
Why don't you talk properly?
I'm surprised how nervous I was.
I don't know why, I just felt uncomfortable doing many things.
Um... and it... it is...
It is partly having to, you know, deal with John.
He's intimidating.
♪ When I lift 'em They climb the stairs ♪
♪ And whoo when I shave 'em They ain't got hairs ♪
[groaning]
Gilliam was always hopeless, you know,
but he could be very funny.
[Gilliam] The problem with the stage show for me, it's not
my real contribution to Python,
that's the reality, my best stuff is up on screen.
This stuff is fun, you know.
It's nice to be part of the whole thing,
it's nice to get the audience laughing and applauding,
but what it does, is put me back in the mental state I was in
when we were doing the shows and I was always in awe of the others.
I just found, their performing, their writing was so brilliant
and I just felt, "Well, I'm not good--"
What I do is okay, but what they do is brilliant, you know.
And that's the weird thing now,
that 30 years later, I'm back in that mind frame.
Oh, I thought once I was a rather good filmmaker.
Then I think I made operas, but it's all gone.
I'm just the guy who doesn't speak English as well as they do.
Is that the kind of confession you were looking for tonight?
[Jones] Monsignor Jean Paul Reynard,
Padre Robert Henry Noonan
Rabbis Edwin and Kelly Makepiece Gingolde...
I think, why Python is memorable,
is because of the mix.
A lot of people thought we just got together,
took drugs and wrote the material
and made it up on camera.
Of course it was incredibly well organised,
everything was carefully worked out.
[Jones] Mike and I wrote the bulk of the sketches
and John and Graham would put in the star sketches.
[Palin] John, I think, would admit,
John and Graham, that they were
defenders of the more classical, conventional sketch,
like Dead Parrot, Argument, things they wrote, that were absolutely brilliant,
whereas Terry Gilliam, Terry and myself,
were slightly more concerned in breaking it up, in saying,
"Do we need to have a tag line?" and that sort of thing.
[Jones] For the first series, John was keen on doing just the sketches,
and the sketches were funny,
but I saw The Spike Milligan Show.
Well, I think I got the best out of that joke.
Take the best out of this one, sailor, whoopee!
Uh...
The 60s was very much a time when people are suddenly saying,
"Let's do things that have never been done before,"
because until then, television had been kept,
you know, it was a fairly serious medium.
We at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
decided to invent a pill,
which would make you hear the National Anthem in your mind.
[Jones] And along comes Spike Milligan, very, very important.
[laughter]
Spike was having as much fun with television as he was with radio.
-It was wonderful. -Pretty good.
I heard every note! ♪ God save-- ♪
[clucking]
[howling]
I rang up Mike and Terry Gilliam,
and said, "We can link the sketches with Terry's animation,
and... we don't need to finish sketches."
Yes, mothers, it's time once again
-for Conrad Poohs and his dancing teeth. -[fart sound]
I had the freedom and the restrictions that are necessary,
in that Gilliam takes over from this point in the sketch
and gets us to that point in another sketch.
Okay, so now I've got goalposts.
But, now, what you do in-between, how the game is played,
that's up to me.
[unintelligible mumbling]
[whimsical music]
[man] Ladies and gentlemen, the most successful comedy group of all time,
-Monty Python! -[loud cheers]
Is this unusual, that you would all be hanging out?
-Very unusual. -Very unusual.
[Norton] Said with feeling.
We don't get on very well, really.
One Down, Five To Go.
[laughter]
Two down, four to go.
Artificial knee, artificial hip.
-I've got two artificial hips. -That's a good dance routine.
♪ Artificial knee Artificial hip ♪
You've got two artificial hips?
No, they're not artificial, they've replaced them.
Why did you say artificial then? Doddery old idiot.
I'm leaving, I can't put up with this.
John despised me for a bit, you know,
sort of... for the first series of shows.
-[Norton] Is it all greatest hits? -It's all greatest hits, really.
Very old material.
Intertwined with other people.
-Other... -[Cleese] Other people?
But, I mean, you know, once I started directing the films,
he got more respect for me.
You know, there is a genuine idea called "artistic differences", you know.
And when you have two people who have an artistic temperament,
aren't just thinking, "Well, we'll knock off at five and have a drink",
but are trying to get something really right,
then, of course, you are gonna have fights and arguments.
-Monty... -Python...
-Reunion... -Live...
At the O2.
[all] July 2014.
My brain hurts!
Most of us are not natural best friends.
You would find it very difficult
to find three people more different than me,
Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam.
We are just miles... poles apart in almost everything.
I don't think Terry Gilliam has ever said anything
that I agreed with.
[Gilliam] One Down, Five To Go was John's idea.
We agreed we were gonna do this in alphabetical order,
so Cleese has gotta go and that'll be the end of it.
[whimsical music]
[Gilliam] By the time we got to Canada,
that was a little bit more interesting,
'cause suddenly we are going, you know, internationally,
and everyone is flying over.
That was the days when you could sit up in first class
and you could have drinks, at a little, rounded table.
It was very, very, very civilised, I think.
Then we get to Canada, and it just got sillier.
I remember riding the conveyer belt with the luggage.
Uh, only because, what else you gonna do?
And we were like rock stars,
and that was the time where you could be merry japers.
You could be outrageous and people would find it funny.
We got to Vancouver airport,
and we came through the door
and there was this scream and cheer!
And we all went...
We all looked behind 'cause we thought some rock'n'roll people were coming.
And then they put us on an open bus and drove us into the city centre,
followed by cars hooting and honking.
I mean it was like... oh, this is a bit different.
[Gilliam] That was a big surprise from England,
the scale of getting to Canada,
everything is bigger and cheering fans.
It was like, this is the stuff you dream of when you are young,
this is "fame"!
When we went on, it was rock'n'roll.
We'd go on stage and they'd go nuts and just go nuts.
John would get very cross,
"Shut up, we haven't said anything funny yet!"
Then they'd laugh.
I used to be so much of a purist,
that I could imagine I would do that,
'cause for me it was a question of trying to present
a performance in, as it were, in a glass case,
that was technically perfect.
That's what I was trying to do,
and over the course of about 40 years, I've discovered
that there's a lot of other ways of doing it.
[Idle] It was on the plane from Toronto going west
that John announced, "I'm not gonna do another series."
I think Terry called me a traitor and I remember thinking,
"I'd only said I'd do television with them", you know what I mean.
It wasn't sort of...
mixed-mingled my blood with theirs forevermore.
On one hand, it was very disappointing.
On the other hand, I began to think maybe he was right.
We weren't carving new ground, I felt.
I think we were beginning to repeat ourselves
and it wasn't quite as adventurous, exciting and dangerous.
[Palin] "Monty Python reunite for rare on-stage show.
oft-perjured material is delivered by the septuagenarians..."
-It's really ageist. -I know it is ageist.
It's really ageist. Why keep going on about the fact that we are 70?
[Gilliam] Because they work for the Stones.
One of them said, "They imagined sexual encounters are clearly beyond them now."
-That's not true, is it Terry? -[Gilliam] It is.
You're... you're fit.
No, it's all beyond me, I gave it up years ago.
-I just wanna live. -So, my gauge is now a safer place.
Yes, it is a safer place.
What was it... what...
I forgot, I've gone Terry on you.
So few of the critics really have any idea what they are talking about,
and of course they have no idea
that they have no idea what they are talking about.
But the greatest thing ever said about the critics,
and it's been true from the very beginning,
was what Oscar Wilde said, you know?
He said, "They are like eunuchs.
They watch it every night but they can't do it themselves."
Almost every review from broad-minded papers
that would recognise ageism when they saw it, say,
"At 70, they can still get on stage."
Of course we can fucking get on stage, you know?
People at 80...
David Attenborough is 86, he goes around the world!
It's a silly... it's a cliché they've fallen into,
this is their sort of angle on it.
"Gosh, these old grey beards..."
because, I suppose, when they first saw the material we were 27,
so it must be a bit of a shock.
You only felt the age backstage
when you were trying to get into your next bit of clothing
and nothing fits and you are sweating.
That's where the age was. On stage, we were... kids again.
[dramatic music]
[Cleese] Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition!
There have been two I've seen using the words "homophobia",
what the fuck are they talking about?
I mean, Camping Up, that's not homophobic,
You know, Judges is not homophobic.
I think it's selling the joys of homosexuality.
I could see that little curly-headed foreman of the jury eyeing me!
-Really? -Oh, yeah, cheeky devil.
I finished up with, I got really strict:
"The actions of these vicious men
are a violent stain upon the community.
Anyway, I finished up...
[audience whistling]
The actions...
Graham basically believed we were all homosexual,
and we were all just covering it up in some way or another.
Look, I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything
that any of you may be doing at home,
but I want you to think of me as an old queen...
friend!
Graham was always outrageous,
he would push things to the limit
and reveal a lot about people.
Are you suggesting eating my mother?
-Yeah, not raw, cooked. -What?
You've got a very strange human being
crawling around under a table
and licking your wife's legs.
[man] Yes, you do.
It's amazing he wasn't beaten up more often.
[man] What kind of a fellow is Monty Python, by the way?
He's black.
[man] Black...
And he's homosexual.
-And he's got three wives-- -[man] Speak for yourself!
I was speaking for myself.
I'm sad that he didn't get to do the O2 show,
but relieved at the same time.
His problem was
that he was always a little disconnected from reality.
My impersonation of Graham was always... he'd be doing...
He'd be somewhere else, you know?
When you were writing with him, he didn't...
He came and went,
but when he arrived with an idea or suddenly said something,
he was always rather wonderful.
Graham was always a pain in the arse on stage,
'cause he always, you know, was pissed as a fart.
[Chapman] May I just break in at this point?
Yes, please break in at this point, sir.
I don't think I've been as bad on an interview as this,
ever before in my life.
I'm really doing terribly badly, I'm sorry.
Maybe, later on, I might be able to say something
and when I can, I'll try and chip in.
When we first started the stage tour,
like in Bristol we were on a stage tour,
and he'd do a sketch with Michael called Ken Shabby.
[gruffly clears throat] I clean out public toilets.
Is there a promotion involved?
After five years, they give me a brush.
I just want to make sure
that you'll be able to look after my daughter.
Oh yeah, yeah. I'll be able to look after her all right, sport.
Aye! Know what I mean? [gruff laugh]
And Graham was the father,
'cause I was asking for Connie's hand in marriage, you know.
Sort of, um... "What prospects do you have?" and all that.
And Graham just didn't come on,
and John brilliantly appeared
half-dressed in the sketch after that
and did Graham's lines.
He was furious!
He accused us of upstaging him, and trying to get...
But there was nothing happening on stage!
So, that was the very bad part of Graham was the alcoholism,
'cause he would have tremendous fears of performing.
He'd have the shakes.
Uh, but when he recovered,
um, right around The Life of Brian,
he was an extraordinary performer.
Luxury.
We used to have to get out of the lake at three o' clock in the morning,
clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel,
work 20 hours a day at mill for tuppence a month,
come home and dad would beat us around the head and neck
with a broken bottle if we were lucky!
[Cleese] Graham Chapman, co-author of The Parrot sketch is no more.
He has ceased to be.
Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries.
[dramatic music]
[God] You people really pissed me off!
I'm sorry I invented you.
It was a really bad idea.
Sex, sex, sex, that's all you bloody humans think about.
That and trying to blow smoke up my arse with endless prayers.
It's so boring!
Now, this is supposed to be a funny show,
so, for my sake, get on with it!
[thunder]
We toured Canada, 2,000 seaters,
and then we did Drury Lane,
which was 4,000 seaters, we were on for four weeks there.
We had a residency at a theatre,
we weren't having to travel, which was better.
[Palin] It's a three-cornered contest between,
from left to right, Alan Jones,
Sensible Party,
Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim
lim-bin-bim-bin-bim bus stop F'tang F'tang Ole Biscuitbarrel,
Silly Party,
and Kevin Phillips Bong,
who is running on the Slightly Silly ticket.
I think Floyd came and the Stones came, and The Who came.
Bands liked us,
and, in fact, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd,
were two of the investors in our first film, Holy Grail.
It was just the thing to do, see Python,
'cause I think, you know, they're always on the road,
and they are bored shitless and play endless comedy tapes.
I remember David Bowie and Mick Jagger
in a box to the side of the stage,
you know, so, we had quite a high-class audience.
I suppose we were in that sense
the first rock'n'roll comedy group, in the sense if we're that big.
We were playing in big places, where rock'n'roll band played.
And then we did City Center in New York
for about... four weeks or so and that was huge.
[up-tempo music]
[Cleese] When we got to New York,
I'll always remember this on the opening night...
We went on stage, we got this huge laugh
'cause they recognised the opening line,
it was a cup final roar almost,
and then they stopped laughing.
And we played the sketch to relative silence.
And I thought, "My God, this is... this is awful."
And suddenly, we did the last line, cup final roar.
Hurrah!
And I walked off and I said to a stagehand, "What..."
He said, "It's a pop concert, it's not a stage show."
And he said, "Come and look."
And he took me, they have a little bit of gauze in the front curtain,
and I could see the people in the audience going...
[mouthing]
They were all doing the lines!
So what are they there for? They're like a pop concert,
they know the song, they know the sketch,
but they are there just to share the occasion.
This is City Center and we end with "Lumberjack Song",
and George Harrison was in,
and I said, "Why don't you go on and be a lumberjack?
You know, just come on like this and be a lumberjack?"
And he did, and he was very good, nobody noticed.
[Palin] So, the story George told me, that he, George Harrison,
had sent a fan letter to the BBC after the first show
saying, "This is great," and all that.
And we never got it,
because someone probably on BBC desk would've said,
"Oh, yeah, and I'm the Duke of Edinburgh."
Because The Beatles were so huge then,
the idea The Beatles liking a silly comedy show...
You look vaguely Victorian.
What was great about doing the show, is we don't have to do--
You know, you are not turning up at a funeral and doing a memorial speech.
It's like, "Wow, we're still here, let's do this thing."
-[Palin] Terry Gilliam! -Gilliam.
Come on, give me a little hug.
Are you a girl or a boy at the moment?
-Those are sideburns. -I wanna know how to hug.
I'm on the cusp. Ooh...
Pythons have always exchanged insults
and teased each other rotten, and that's fun.
He's got a better wig than I've got.
I knew it, I knew it!
You can wear it after the show.
[laughter]
[Idle] It was the whole spirit of it, it was very warm.
In the rehearsals, they could not have been nicer or more loving.
Are your nipples enjoying it?
-My nipples are... -Your nipples are enjoying it.
His nipples are a very good sign,
you'll see in the interval, the state of Terry's nipples,
they really are very, very frisky tonight, aren't they?
Go away! For fuck's sake, it's like being followed by the CIA!
What do you want to know? Why do you bother professionals
who are planning the rest of the show,
to get to grips with the characters,
the depth of the characters that we play?
Hello!
[indistinct singing on stage]
♪ It's fun to own Your own vagina ♪
♪ It's great to have Your friendly thatch ♪
♪ Your minge, your twat Your kitty cat ♪
♪ Your nest, your nasty Or your snatch ♪
♪ It's great to have A monkey furrow ♪
♪ Your finger pie Your lunchbox or your catch ♪
♪ Your cameltoe Your bearded clam ♪
♪ Your bottom at the front ♪
♪ Your monkey minge Your muffin ♪
♪ Or your old Sir Berkely Hunt ♪
♪ Your honeypot Your hairy friend ♪
♪ But never call it "cunt" ♪
♪ Or we won't come back ♪
[knocking on door]
-Come in. -[man] Come in.
It's the police... Hello.
You sent it to print it out.
-What's this? -[woman] Oh, that was for me.
That's a print out, you sent it to us.
Okay, thank you. Special delivery...
-[woman] I think that was for me. -It's from John Cleese.
"Dear Eric, I am going to have another wife..."
Oh, sorry!
[Idle] John is fiercely intelligent,
and then he's fiercely wilful so it's like, you know, a comic Hitler.
Company, today, you go off to war,
and my God, I wish I was coming with you.
[laughter]
When I first went to fight, I had two arms, two good arms,
when the time came to give them, I gave them, I gave them gladly.
I sang and laughed as they sawed them off,
because I believe there was a future for mankind
if men were prepared to give their limbs.
[Cleese] I was worried about my chaplain speech
because I thought I did it alright
but it didn't get much of a laugh,
because it may be that it sounds slightly too convincing,
when you talk about a war to end the next war, you know?
It's the kind of thing politicians say.
And our children's children's limbs,
and our children's children's limbs...
And what about our pets?
Why should those little bastards get off...
[Chapman] Right, stop that sketch, I think it's silly.
Now, nobody likes a good laugh more than I do.
It's algebra, I always say it's algebra... comedy.
It is not an art, it's science.
"A" plus "B" equals a laugh.
If I do this and I wear this, and I say this, they will laugh,
that's just a theory, until they do.
It's provable because they laugh,
so, you were right in your theory.
It's more mathematical than it is, "Oh, I'll just be funny."
Is your wife a goer?
Know what I mean, know what I mean, nudge, nudge,
know what I mean, say no more?
I beg your pardon?
Your wife, does she... does she go, eh, does she go?
Know what I mean, know what I mean, eh?
Well, she sometimes has to go, yes.
I bet she does, I bet she does,
say no more, say no more, know what I mean, nudge, nudge.
It has its own logic to it,
and sometimes you can adjust it if they don't laugh,
and you say, "I'm sure that's funny,"
it's because you haven't quite put the word order in the right sense,
so that is goes flash into their brains all at the same time.
There's an example...
My Lord, I really must protest at your shooting my client.
Damn you!
I'm in charge of this court! Stand up!
Sit down!
-Go "moo". -[all] Moo.
See? Order in the skating vicar. and on with the pixie hats.
And everybody sing!
♪ Anything goes in ♪
♪ Anything goes out ♪
♪ Fish, bananas, old pyjamas ♪
♪ Mutton, beef and trout ♪
[Cleese] I still think you should instruct us to do one more thing.
'Cause I remember this was one of the moments I heard
that I cried with laughter watching you on the box.
Stand up, sit down, go moo...
And I think we should have one other.
And then reverse those lines, saying,
"On with the pixie hats and order in the skating vicar."
Stand up!
Sit down!
-Go "moo". -[all] Moo.
Sit up!
[laughter]
Now, on with the pixie hats...
[Jones] Robert Browning, describing the metaphor,
he says, "You take an image and another image
and combine them and they make a star."
♪ Old pyjamas ♪
♪ Mutton, beef and trout ♪
I think you make laughs by that, combining two images
and, um... that's my theory of comedy.
Hello, I wish to register a complaint.
Hello, Miss?
What do you mean, "Miss"?
I am sorry, I have a cold.
I wish to make a complaint.
Sorry, we are closing for lunch.
Never mind that, my lad, I wish to complain about this parrot
what I purchased not half an hour ago
from this very boutique.
On the recording of the first parrot sketch,
it didn't get that much of a reception
from the studio audience, it's very interesting.
Look, my lad, I know a dead parrot when I see one,
and I'm looking at one right now.
No, no, it's not dead, it's restin'!
And I think it started to become... a thing,
something special, that you would say now "iconic",
when we started doing it on stage.
Testing, testing...
This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
[audience roars with laughter]
Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
He's stunned!
You assured me that its total lack of movement
was due to it being tired and shagged out
following a prolonged squawk.
Well, it may be pining for the fjords.
[all snickering]
Pining for the fjords?
The biggest single surprise
was that we started to find the material funny when we read it.
We'd never expected it.
And suddenly, Mike and I were doing the dead parrot sketch
and everyone was laughing genuinely,
it was an extraordinary thing.
Well, I'd better replace it, then.
You can't say...
[all laugh]
[Idle] Palin can still crack him up,
and John said something quite nice,
he said, Eddie Izzard had said to him
after the first night,
"Don't worry, everybody knows how the sketch should go,
it's a joy to see it not going properly.
We haven't see that."
And that relaxed John
about giggling and corpsing occasionally.
But the focus, his concentration is really good,
he can bring it right into the moment
and make you wait for his sense of timing
when he feels it's right to say the next line.
[clears throat]
Do you...
[snickers]
Do...
These people...
they've got homes to go to.
[audience laughs]
So...
In that case, why don't you come up with a punchline?
[laughter]
I'm waiting... I'm pausing for effect.
[stifling laughter]
So, I'll...
-I'll just say... -Oh, come on...
Do you wanna come back to my place?
Oh...
It's kind of like the audience have been let in
to the private world of Python
and the relationships...
particularly between John and Mike,
which is banned in many countries that relationship,
but not here luckily.
The corpsing thing has to be used very, very carefully.
If you are laughing before the audience laugh,
then they are just not going to like it
and it looks unprofessional.
And very often with Python sketches,
the essence of the sketch,
was holding a completely serious front.
John is marvellous at that,
just always looks absolutely totally serious.
And that was so funny,
so you had to be very, very careful to debunk that,
but also, it does mean that when John begins to go,
when he's being serious, it's very, very funny.
And what's this one, Spring Surprise?
Ah, that's our speciality.
"Covered in dark, rich smooth chocolate,
when you pop it into your mouth..."
Let me read that for you...
"...stainless steel bolts spring out
and plunge straight through both cheeks."
Where's the pleasure in that--
[all laughing]
Pull yourself together, constable!
Sorry, sir.
Or you'll be a constable ex-parrot.
Where are we, can you remember?
[laughter continues]
John Cleese, he said to us, we're in the Tardis,
John says, "Alright, the first person to giggle
gets to pay £10,000 to charity."
He didn't even get through the first sketch.
-Come out, Phil! -I'm out.
Come out, come out!
Interesting thing is that most of the people
who come to the meet and greet
are usually from America or Canada.
Or, occasionally, one from Spain,
we had one bloke from Sheffield,
there's always a Finn, there's always someone from Finland.
Python's lawsuit cost us a whole pile of money,
so the Python pension fund was... [makes slurping sound]
And John, you know, with his flagrant lifestyle...
um... he needed money,
and Terry needed... I mean, that's what--
I think so many people don't think we were serious
when we said it was about Terry's mortgage, but it was.
...just a pain, John.
...being back in his dressing room is just pain.
I thought we were gathering in here.
Just pain that John is in his dressing room.
"It is a pain" or "he's in pain"?
-No, it's a pain. -It's a pain, okay.
[Gilliam] He's not participating in the group.
No, he's just...
[Idle] We'll give Terry a glass of champagne.
Give him a glass of hot Beaujolais or something.
[man] This question is for Terry Gilliam.
You may not even remember this, but a few years back
you were in Philadelphia, and you fell off a horse
and were kicked in the head by a horse...
-Yes. -Do you remember that?
-You were that horse? -No!
That was my horse.
-Are you serious? -Yes, of course.
Luke, the horse was called Luke.
Yes, the horse was called Luke.
You bastard!
He was actually aiming for Cleese,
I don't know what happened.
[man #2] My mother has always said, that you and her met
about 42 years ago.
-Yes, I remember. -[audience laughing]
[man continues] Now that you have vaguely insinuated
that you remember the name,
Yes, I do...
I am rather tall...
In Calgary.
And I do walk funny.
[woman] My name is Sandy,
I actually have a question for Terry Gilliam.
Oh, God. Are you sure?
[Sandy] Sorry?
Getting kicked in the head by a horse.
-Are you from Philadelphia? -[Sandy] I am.
And maybe you were filming there Twelve Monkeys
and you got a gash on the head from a horse?
Yes, that's true, was it your horse?
[Sandy] I'm the vet of that horse.
You're the vet of that horse?
[man] Hi, my name is Manuel from Portugal.
-[laughter] -[Idle] Whoa!
I'm...
I'd just like to ask if anyone has any elaboration
on why you're retiring now as opposed to earlier or later,
and, if possibly you might reconsider,
I'm sure you've heard that from thousands of people,
but it's a question of doing it out of duty to us
because nobody else can do what you do.
What the fuck do we owe you?
[whimsical fanfare]
[Idle] July 1980 was the last time we performed live.
The idea that Python would play the Hollywood Bowl,
it was like a Frank Sinatra venue, you know.
So, it always made us laugh, Monty Python, Live at the Hollywood Bowl
was already a comic title for us.
What happened at the Bowl is for the first time we had the close-up cameras.
Now you can talk to 6,000 people,
because they can see you, they are all watching television together
is actually what they're really doing.
[Cleese] We had four nights, I think.
The Hollywood Bowl.
What I suddenly realised,
was what a wonderful sketch performer Eric had become.
I saw your advert in the blassified ads.
The what?
In The Times Blassified Ads.
Ah, The Times Classified Ads?
Yes, that's right, I'm afraid I have a speech impediment.
I can't pronounce the letter "B".
I never thought he wasn't very good before then,
I had always thought he was very good,
but when he did the Hollywood Bowl,
it was as though he'd somehow grown
and he was a bigger presence that he'd ever been before.
Can you say the letter "K"?
Oh, yes. Khaki, kettle, Kipling,
Khomeini, Kellogg's Born Flakes.
Well, why don't you say the letter "K"
instead of the letter "C"?
What, you mean, pronounce "blassified" with a "K"?
Yes, absolutely.
-Klassified. -Good.
Oh, it's very good! I never thought of that before.
What a silly bunt.
I remember I had to do the Travel Agent
and I went right amongst them,
I'd stand on them and go through them, it was really fun.
And they'd love it. I'd just trod on them.
"Oh, he trod on me!" [laughs]
...waiting to take you to the hotel hasn't yet been built!
When you finally get to the half-built Algerian ruin
called the Hotel Limassol...
[Gilliam] The Hollywood Bowl was great fun.
We were so at ease in those days.
There's no water in the bath, there's no water in the tap,
there's only a bleeding lizard in the bidet...
[Palin] We were all youngish then, we were kind of up for it.
Life of Brian had been a great success,
a success d'estime anyway,
and so we were riding a bit of a wave then.
Tonight, on World Forum we are deeply privileged
to have with us Karl Marx,
the founder of modern socialism and author of The Communist Manifesto.
[audience cheering]
Vladimir Ilitch Ulyanov, better known to the world as Lenin,
leader of the Russian Revolution,
writer, statesman, and father of modern socialism.
[Cleese] The loveliest thing anyone ever said to me about Python,
was that, "I cannot watch the news afterwards
and take it seriously."
And I think it's very important that we see
that we shouldn't be taking most of it seriously
because I don't think these people have any idea what they're doing.
Jerry Lee Lewis has had over 17 major solid gold hits in the U.S. of A.
What's the name of the biggest?
That to me is always what Python was about,
trying to encourage people to think.
It's always been important to me,
whether the silliness, the intellectual jokes,
the, uh-- just breaking barriers,
trying to get people to look at the world,
see the absurdity of so much of it,
see the humour in the most small things.
[buzzer]
Yes, Mao Tse-tung?
"Great Balls of Fire"?
Yes, it was indeed.
Use your brain, use these things.
That was essential to Python, as far as I was concerned.
And causing offence was part of that.
It's to shock people, to shock them out of their complacency,
their timidity, their caution in life.
Be bold, fall on your face a couple of times,
it doesn't hurt that badly, you bounce back up, it's okay.
We now come on to a consideration
of the more sophisticated transitive mode of japing
in which, as we'll observe, the operator, or inceptor,
remains totally unaware of the humorous implications of his action.
First... First, we are to see
the simple sideswipe or "wop."
Hey, Vance!
[Cleese] I once interviewed the Dalai Lama.
What he said, he liked laughter because he said,
"When people laugh, they can change their minds."
And I think that's right,
the more anxious we are, the more we hang on to our beliefs,
you know, if you think of the fundamentalists,
whatever religion we are talking about,
the way they hang on to their beliefs,
they miss the point.
-Are you the church police? -[all] Oh, yes!
There's another dead bishop on the landing, vicar sergeant!
Detective Parson, madam.
What is he, RC or C of E?
How should I know?
It's tattooed on the back of their neck.
If you are really out there,
thinking we can change this place
into something other than a madhouse
I think you are wasting your energy.
But if you can make 12 or 15 lives just a little bit better,
in some small way, then I think you are doing your job.
♪ Life can be fine If we both 69 ♪
♪ If we sit on our faces in all Sorts of places and play ♪
♪ 'Till we're blown away ♪
[Palin] Throughout the world, there are groups, there are people,
religions, there are companies,
which are desperately trying to control
exactly what we are, what we think,
they say, "This is the way you should do it,
and we are just saying, "No, it isn't. Up yours."
-So, Mike's in there... -I'll come right out. I'll just drop this off.
Brilliant. Oh, there he is, there he is, Eric.
I'm transformed once again into my mother.
God bless her.
She's been gone a long time but suddenly she's come back.
-You are? -A friend of Mike's.
Ah! He always liked the cheeky chappy.
He always had a feeling for the cheeky chappy.
This is hilarious.
It's your new documentary career.
Thank you very much.
I suggest a tour around the world but in drag.
How long will it take for people to notice?
-I'll be right with you. -[Palin] Okay.
One afternoon, Eric just called me and said,
"Look, we've got problems
because, UK TV who are putting out the show live,
are worried about certain elements
which are gonna be before the watershed which is 9:00."
They wouldn't put on the "Penis Song", the "Vagina Song",
and so we were able to control at least
one of the gaps in the show.
I wrote a sketch very quickly.
I said, "Michael would be great,"
to apologise for it,
so I wrote him some text and said, "Would you do this
and we'll shot it tomorrow?" He said, "Absolutely."
[Palin] Right.
-Who's first? -[man] Should we go through the timing of this?
-Yes. -[man, indistinct]
That's the thing Python's always had problems with, really,
yeah, it's like censorship or anything like that.
It seems to us just a challenge. It shouldn't be happening to us,
we've got to find a way around it.
...and then sort of gently come out...
The first two genitalia parts of the body such as the "bleep",
and the particularly naughty "bleep",
with the understanding not be transmitted
before the watershed, below the water line.
And some words like "bleep",
which may never be transmitted on television,
quite rightly at any time,
although I have one, a "bleep", that is, not a television.
I think it's funny if you are actually saying the words,
we have to bleep you for apologising for using the words.
Yes.
'Cause it's confusing with the "bleep"
when you are saying it all the time.
Three, two, one, action.
Hello, my name is Daphne Fielding.
Unfortunately, the Python boys
are using some rather vile language, just at the moment,
in a particularly rude song which refers to genitalia
-and parts of the body such as the... -[ship's horn]
-...and particularly, the naughty... -[party favour blows]
...which, as you understand, may not be transmitted before the watershed.
The watershed is a television term
introduced by top people in television
to mean nine o'clock,
which, of course, is the cut-off point between when decent people go to bed
and angry perverts and other people of twisted mentality
are left to watch television after nine o'clock.
[clears throat] And, of course, there are some words they are using like...
cunt, yes, cunt,
which may never be transmitted on television quite rightly.
Although, I have one myself,
a television, of course, not a cunt.
Anyway, here to keep you going
is something I particularly like,
a picture of some sheep.
[Idle] He's just amazing at improvising.
He's wonderful, he's the best improviser.
He adlibbed three different versions
of what was basically, you know, the same joke,
just completely off the top of his head, which is lovely.
Bravo, here he comes now.
In the guise of an older man.
Oh, dear, I had to drop the drag.
-That was really funny. -I was enjoying that.
Yeah, it was really good.
You've got to get into the swing of it.
-It was superb. -Good. Okay.
You had a lot of bleeping,
what happens when you bleep "cunt" and all that sort of stuff?
Anyone who can lip read will know.
But I don't think the watershed applies to lip-reading, so we'll see.
[whimsical music]
Not another show, is it?
It goes on and on, I feel we've been in this ten years.
-Do you feel that? -[Idle] What's that, love?
I feel we've been doing this for ten years.
-Haven't we? -Yes.
-We were young when we started. -Yes, and now are good as...
And you were John Cleese.
Really? I thought I felt a little unwell.
[laughs]
[music plays]
[indistinct chattering]
Who would've thought 40 years ago
we'd all be sitting here doing Monty Python, eh?
[all] Aye.
Bit quieter tonight, we think. Do you think?
No, I would it take it personally if I were you.
You think that?
No, I do think it's been--
-It was so big at the start... -Yeah.
...and then, where's it gonna go?
It can't go up from there, it sort of drifts down...
-They've burnt themselves out in the first five minutes. -Is that it?
It wasn't-- We didn't burn ourselves out?
No, no, no, I think the audience is not fit.
-It's not our fault. -It's not fit for this show.
-Anyway, here's John now. -Oh, sorry. He'll tell.
Yeah.
[both chuckle]
They were laughing in some places.
Sometimes you sense the audience laughing more at the familiar stuff,
other nights they love at the stuff that goes wrong,
that hasn't happened before,
and I can't figure this lot out at all,
-but it's been unbelievably hot today. -Yeah.
So, they may have got in and get excited
and later start feeling a little bit tired.
They're probably tired. It does make you tired, doesn't it,
all this stuff, makes me tired.
What's going on? 'Cause nobody's laughing.
They were listening, there's no question about that,
Laughter is the fuel for the Pythons...
without laughter they die,
sad, horrible old men,
withering away in their lonely mansions.
We found out why they went quiet in Act I.
It's very simple, put lights on the audience.
'Cause when they wanna film it tomorrow,
they want big shots of the audience,
but that's not what the fucking thing is about.
When you put lights on the audience,
they stop being an audience.
They are individuals in lights and they hate it, and you just lose them.
So that's what happened, it wasn't the heat or anything.
So, we are rather cross tonight, and heads will roll.
[organ plays]
Breaking news, Monty Python are reuniting for the last time...
[all speaking in foreign languages]
[crowd chants] Python! Python!
[all] Oh, we do love Monty Python!
To me it's amazing to have the opportunity to see them actually live.
[Palin] We were under more pressure on the last night than on the previous nights,
because we were being filmed
and it was going out to 1,800 cinemas worldwide.
This was really important to get this absolutely right.
[man] John, come in a little bit more, that's lovely.
That's good.
I think that the conclusion of it was really important,
and when Mike who didn't want to do it anymore,
was offered untold wealth to tour America
and South Africa and Australia,
when he said no, I was very grateful
and I said, "Jim, we'll make it the last night of Python."
[indistinct chattering]
I think this is a very finite, ten days... and it works.
Brings it to a nice close.
There you are, good luck.
Thank you so much, my darling, it's been a pleasure.
Michael...
I need you to sing these two wonderful hard-backed...
Do you have a signing device?
Yes, yes, put that in your fingers.
-I've got to take the top off. -That's the hard bit.
Now, all these ladies are coming into my dressing room...
-What's going on here? -Come on, Terry.
[women laughing]
After the way you treat me on stage...
-Do you know the sketch? -I do.
-Okay, good. -I know every sketch.
You know everything about it.
For the show, he is on stage with ten ensemble dancers
in Agent Provocateur lingerie.
-Right, you got my memo? -I did.
-Black lace, is that right? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Am I wearing the chaps with the ass cut out?
-Fantastic. -Leather, white leather.
-Pleather. -Pleather?
-Yeah. -Sorry, sorry...
Couldn't all go right, could it?
It doesn't matter, you know what?
It's the red M&Ms, that's all.
["I Like Traffic Lights" plays]
[chorus vocalizes]
♪ I like traffic lights ♪
I had a phone call from my daughter who lives in Buenos Aires,
who is off to the local cinema in Buenos Aires to watch it.
It's incredible, we're absolutely everywhere.
[cheers and applause]
-Crazy wig room. -That was my nickname in school.
-Crazy wig? -Yeah.
My theory begins now...
Ahem.
All brontosauruses are thin at one end,
much thicker in the middle
and then thin at the far end again,
that is my theory and what it is,
and it belongs to me too, and it's mine.
I like a nice gin before I go on.
-[man] One minute. -Great for the performance.
-What do you want? -Well, I...
Don't give me that!
You snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type makes me puke!
You vacuous, stuffy, malodorous, old pervert!
Look, I came here for an argument.
Oh, I'm sorry, this is abuse.
-Oh... -[laughter]
-Do I take my lipstick off? -No, you keep it on.
-Next one. -Oh, that's right.
Oh, yes, oh...
[unintelligible audio from the stage]
[Cleese] Excuse me...
[man moans lecherously]
[quiet, indistinct chatter]
Sure.
[indistinct conversation on stage]
[man, lecherously] Mmm, that's better.
-Oh, yes, it is. -[cars honking]
[brakes squeal, crash]
[honking continues]
[fanfare music]
[Cleese] Albatross!
[audience cheering]
Albatross!
Two choc-ices, please.
I haven't got any choc-ices, I only got the albatross.
[Jones] Do you get wafers with it?
[Cleese] Course you don't get fucking wafers with it.
It's an albatross!
You're disgusting, you're not even a proper woman.
Don't you oppress me, mate.
[Cleese] It was an emotional event
and the emotions were almost all positive.
which is very rare.
The sense of general benevolence was just extraordinary.
Looks very ordinary to me,
could just be an ordinary guy off the street,
could be a celebrity, five, four, three, two, one!
Off with the bag!
Oh, my God!
Oh, wow!
Oh...
[audience cheering]
International Man of Mystery himself,
this is a great moment, but, Mike...
-Mike... -Yes?
We're both Mike, so I can Mike... I can Mike with you.
-You're on "Blackmail"... -Yes.
What's gone wrong?
You mean, what's gone right?
I'm on stage with you.
Oh, well, we want you to confess,
'cause this is "Blackmail", we know you've been in trouble,
so, if there's anything you want to share with the audience,
now it's your time.
I wanna share how incredibly honoured I am
to be on stage with Monty Python,
the greatest comedy troupe in the history of the English language!
And...
And there may be photographs of me with German shepherds.
Oh, wow!
He's too nice a guy. Thank you for coming on the show.
Oh, that's it? Okay.
[Palin] Thank you all from "Blackmail".
See you next week, okay!
If somebody had said to me
when I was 14 in Toronto, you know...
Amazing.
Beyond...
[man] Is there anybody else in that category?
-In comedy? -Yes.
No. No. Nobody.
They're the Mac Daddy, dude.
Ladies and gentleman,
tonight the show is going live
all around the world, amazingly enough.
So, wherever you are watching,
would you please all join us
all the way around the world
in saying farewell to us
by singing this little ditty?
♪ Some things in life are bad ♪
♪ They can really Make you mad ♪
♪ Other things just make you Swear and curse ♪
♪ When you're chewing On life's gristle ♪
♪ Don't grumble Give a whistle ♪
♪ And this'll help things Turn out for the best ♪
♪ And always look on The bright side of life ♪
[all whistle]
Come on!
♪ Always look on The bright side of life ♪
[Jones] It felt emotional, the last night.
It was sad, really.
Being a Python was a great shot in the arm for me.
♪ When you're feeling In the dumps ♪
♪ Don't be silly chumps ♪
I think I will now reveal the truth...
My secret fear is that I will want more of it.
Your ego is this huge, massive thing waiting.
"More, give me more!"
♪ Bright side of life ♪
Gosh, we did it, we pulled it off, it's over,
but I'm glad we ended on a big high note,
rather than in some embarrassing hall,
somebody has a heart attack and they can't go on.
But seriously, that's how all show business ends.
♪ Give the audience a grin ♪
[Cleese] Dear old Graham, he loved being a star.
He loved the whole business of show business,
and I think if he could've been out on stage
he would've had a wonderful time.
[Palin] I remember interviewing Spike Milligan,
I was trying to say to Spike what people say to us,
"What does it feel to have done the Goons shows?"
And Spike said, "You know, it was like...
one good summer."
Yeah. So moving.
[chuckles] You know...
One good summer, I know what that means.
[all holding note]
[circus music plays]
[indistinct chattering]
I'm so glad you came, yes.
She's the youngest member of the audience, I think.
Yes...
On my way back from Cambridge, when we shot you,
we said, "We came all this way to Cambridge
to see the most brilliant man in the world
and we did a gag with him."
[Idle] I want very much to release Stephen Hawking singing
"The Galaxy Song" as a single
I think that is definite must for England,
and then I wondered if we couldn't get him singing
"The Lumberjack Song",
and then maybe "Sit On My Face", but maybe that's a step too far.
[Cleese] I quite like getting older
because you don't worry so much about things,
and you begin to realise what an utter madhouse
the whole world is.
It was so extraordinary, so phenomenal,
so vast, world encompassing, world spanning,
and it's over.
The guy going up the street the other day
as I was just walking through London,
he just points his finger at me, he says, "Legend".
Mind you, he then fell off the pavement.
[music continues]