The five surviving members of Monty Python were introduced by Warrick Davis at a press conference in London this week to announce their first performance in over 30 years. Unarguably (to this writer’s mind) the most important comic troupe ever assembled, the gents are getting more than a bit long in the tooth (their combined age clocking in at 357 years), but the wit remains. When the first question came from a Spanish reporter who wanted to know why, if not for money, the Pythons were reuniting, forever-sprightly Michael Palin quickly replied, “Nobody, nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition!”
The Pythons — best known for the late-’60s/early-’70s TV show Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the feature films The Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life — currently plan to do one show at London’s O2 Arena, though they seemed to leave open the possibility of more shows going forward. Terry Jones said as much in a recent editorial in the Guardian:
There exists an aura around Monty Python and we are not averse to doing more than one show at the O2 – I can’t put it any stronger than that. But I know John would like to pay off his alimony and I need to pay off my mortgage, so I suspect there might be a little pressure, if the show is successful, to do it in the US. I know Terry Gilliam is an unwilling partner in all this – he just wants to make films. And Mike wants to continue going round the world. But I can’t help hoping that we will continue to do the show all around the world. As if the world needs it.
When asked about what the show would consist of, the Pythons indicated that there would be some new material used to stitch together the sketches, but most of the show would be composed of familiar sketches augmented by singers, dancers and Terry Gilliam’s surrealist animations. John Cleese recalled a Neil Diamond show in which the crowd booed him for doing new material. “None of Neil Diamond’s new material will be in the show,” Gilliam intoned. “We’re hoping people will have forgotten, so they’ll appear new,” chimed in Eric Idle.
When asked what sketches they were interested in doing, Cleese said that unfortunately an artificial hip and knee would prevent him from doing the Ministry of Silly Walks, but he was looking forward to doing Crunchy Frog and The Dead Parrot sketch.
Watch the entire half-hour press conference here, and check out a couple of our favorite Python moments below:
Crunchy Frog:
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