Up to Its Old Tricks, Monty Python Reunites

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/theater/up-to-its-old-tricks-monty-python-reunites.html?_r=0

LONDON — Something completely different was never going to be on the menu. The record-breaking ticket sales generated by the news that members of the fabled comedy team Monty Python would be reassembling here for a rare onstage reunion were surely not generated by hopes that the old boys had come up with new tricks.

No, the many-thousand-strong fold that assembled at the O2 Arena, where the show, which is running for 10 nights, opened on Tuesday, arrived in the spirit of pilgrims in search not of revelation but reassurance. And I’m presuming that is what they received, in a program that had both the pomp and familiarity of a high church ritual.

For it can indeed be said that Monty Python lives! Or to cite the disarmingly accurate title of this expensive-looking collection of vintage sketches, what we have here is “Monty Python Live (mostly).”

That parenthetical qualifier resonates. Of the six original Pythons — they who in the early 1970s redrew the map of what’s funny on this planet — only five still walk the earth: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. The sixth, Graham Chapman, died in 1989, though his sacred name and image is evoked throughout. It should also be noted that a good stretch of the show is no more live than Mr. Chapman is, which is not to say that it’s dead.

[joeybee12]

1. I'd go see it if I could...

I'd heard they might tour with it...not sure how far and wide, though.

[OriginalGeek]

2. I saw a commercial for it at the movies last weekend

I believe they will show it on movie screens across the land and I plan to be at one of them.


For better or worse, the Pythons taught me funny. Any failures on my part to make the world laugh fall squarely upon my shoulders. I was always a terrible student.

[clarice]

3. Can't wait !!!! nt

[hermetic]

4. All Hail!

We sure need more people like this, to put a fine point on things. To laugh at ourselves a bit. Where are you, young comedians?

Happy to see they're still kicking it. Thanks, steve.