You wait thirty years for a reunion and the moment one is announced, you wish the idea would shrivel up and die. Purists look away now. I’m not sure you are going to like the Monty Python reunion, announced today for 1 July 2014 at the soulless cavern that is the O2.
Opening with an unfunny Boris impersonator, a bad joke about Meryl Streep, and a moderately amusing gag about Qatar winning the bid to host the show, things didn’t get any better. Not even with a cry of ‘nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!’ when the first hack to ask a question ‘just happened’ to be Spanish.
The negative body language made things clear: relations are frosty between Terry Gilliam, John Cleese and the other three surviving members. ‘We may not all like each other, but we are very funny together’ Gilliam admitted. It was Cleese that seemed unable to drop old grudges, pointing out that the reunion had not happened sooner: ‘Michael chickened out last time, so he took the longest to convince.’ Palin’s defence was that he was busy making documentaries, and it’s hardly like he needs the cash.
So what’s behind the reunion? Answers ranged from wanting to see for themselves if they were still funny, to not wanting to leave it too late. The most candid answer came from Gilliam. ‘After you are 70, you can be absolutely shameless. We’re going to be,’ he said. Tickets will cost between £27.50 and £90. ‘We will be filming it, and obviously we will try to flog it later,’ Gilliam added.
The show will feature ‘a little comedy, some pathos, a little music… and there will be cross dressing.’ There will be new material too, alongside old sketches redone for an ominous sounding ‘modern age’. But as Eric Idle admitted, ‘the most annoying thing you hear at a gig is when they say “we’d like to play some tracks from our new album”’.
Regardless of the material, it could never be the same. ‘I have an artificial knee and an artificial hip so you won’t be seeing the Ministry of Silly Walks,’ Cleese conceded. Confirming everyone’s worst fears, he went on to admit that there’s ‘a chance the audience know the scripts better than we do’. Embarrassingly, Eric Idle even suggested that the Pythons will be ‘twerking, or is that tweeting’. There will be medical teams available throughout the show, and each Python will have a nurse on standby. Let’s hope they won’t be needed for distraught fans.
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