More dead air was to follow in the series, with Cleese hamming for all he was worth – quite a lot it turns out – as a barrister cross-examining a man in a coffin. “Are you considering the question or are you just dead?” he inquires before introducing as a character witness Cardinal Richelieu, portrayed by a very-pleased-with-himself Palin. Even the person operating the canned laughter machine seems at a loss.
Monty Python would improve and it is with good reason out-of-body gems such as “philosophers playing football” have lived on, influencing everything from The Fast Show and League of Gentlemen to Father Ted. Yet, sitting through entire episodes on Python – rather than watching the highlights on YouTube – can be a slog, simultaneously trying and stupor-inducing.
The punchlines, such as they are, often land with a deadening thud while the cast radiate heroic levels of smarm. Cleese was, in particular, always funnier as the coming-apart Fawlty than playing the confident, preening types he was typically cast as on Monty Python. And, when stuck for an idea, the first instinct was apparently to wheel out Palin or Idle in drag or cut to a Terry Gilliam animation rather than deliver anything approaching a comedic denouement.
Even at the time, not everyone was drinking the Python Kool Aid. Among those to express their bafflement were old-school set-up and punchline titans Morecambe and Wise.
“University comedy… and I’m afraid that a lot of it is very unprofessional,” commented Eric Morecambe, asked about Monty Python on student union radio in 1973.
“This irritates me, being a professional,” he elaborated. “But what does make me laugh, really makes me laugh. And what doesn’t make me laugh bores me stiff!”
Ernie Wise was more conciliatory – to a point. Some Monty Python was “very funny”, he said, but that was often followed by “another eight minutes of boredom.”
Python veteran Michael Palin has described the remarks as “interesting”. “It didn’t seem particularly savage – but on the other hand, it was very clear what they felt.”
Time and misplaced nostalgia have conspired to cast a rose-tinted glow on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The more complicated fact of the matter is that, at its frequent worst, the Greatest Comedy Ever was a bit of a dead parrot. And now, for the first time in over a generation, viewers have an opportunity to discover the warts-and-all truth about Python for themselves.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is on That’s TV every weeknight at 9pm from March 14
