LITMIR.BIZ

      CONTENTS

       COVER

       TITLE PAGE

      COPYRIGHT

      DEDICATION

      FOREWORD BY JOHN OLIVER

      INTERVIEWEES

       INTRODUCTION

       PRE-PYTHON

       BIRTH

       TAKE-OFF

       THE PYTHONS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

The Control Freak

Splunge!

       The Nice One

       The Cheeky One

       The Zealous Fanatic

       The Monosyllabic Minnesota Farm Boy

       The Group Dynamic

       AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY … THE SAME?

       FEAR AND LOATHING AT THE BBC

       MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

       THE US INVASION BEGINS

       THE FOURTH (AND FINAL) SORTIE

       CAUGHT IN PYTHON’S ORBIT

       LIFE OF BRIAN

       FLYING SOLO

       THE MEANING OF LIFE

       LE MORTE D’ARTHUR

       THE ‘IF YOU COULD SAVE ONLY ONE THING YOU’VE PRODUCED’ CHAPTER

       TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY PYTHON

       SPAMALOT

       DÉJÀ REVUE

       EXITING THE STAGE

       FINAL THOUGHTS

       FOOTNOTES

       THE PYTHON OEUVRE

       SOURCES

       BIBLIOGRAPHY

       INDEX

       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

       ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

       FOREWORD

       BY JOHN OLIVER

      Writing about the importance of Monty Python is basically pointless. At this point, citing them as an influence is almost redundant. It’s assumed. In fact, from now on it’s probably more efficient to say that comedy writers should have to explicitly state that they don’t owe a significant debt to Monty Python. And if someone does that, they’ll be emphatically wrong.

      This strange group of wildly talented, appropriately disrespectful, hugely imaginative, and massively inspirational idiots changed what comedy could be for their generation and for those that followed.

      I first discovered Monty Python when I was probably ten years old, and back then it felt like something I shouldn’t be watching. That was already a pretty big appeal. Then I saw Life of Brian in middle school, when a substitute teacher put it on to keep us quiet on a rainy day. I’m not sure he knew exactly what he was showing us, but I’ve always been hugely grateful for the reckless professional mistake he made that day, because I’ve never forgotten how it made me feel.

      I think what I’ve always loved about all of Monty Python’s work is that they’ve never been afraid to get into trouble, and Life of Brian is the perfect distillation of that. There was a famous episode of a BBC talk show back in 1979, when John Cleese and Michael Palin were being interviewed alongside the Bishop of Southwark and a writer called Malcom Muggeridge, both of whom were furious about the film. Incidentally, the very name ‘Malcolm Muggeridge’ is so stereotypically English, it’s almost racist. It’s the name of someone who should be looking after the owls at Hogwarts. Anyway, for twenty minutes, Muggeridge told them off like a pair of naughty schoolboys,

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