Let's Hear It for the Oldies!
The surviving members of Monty Python got together to do a gig. They thought quite a few people might want to come along, so they booked the O2 arena. The tickets sold out in forty-four seconds! So they booked another nine nights.
You, Dear Reader, do not have to be old enough to remember the original series of Monty Python's Flying Circus, back in the Sixties and early Seventies, to know the show. Sketches and phrases have become so famous they've entered the language - witness their variant on 'sick as a parrot'! Everyone knows the Ministry of Silly Walks, Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition (that episode had only one swear word in it, a record) and, when we remember, we (Always) Look on the Bright Side of Life*!
So, did the audience at the First Night enjoy the show? Did they ever!
From what I remember seeing, which wasn't all that frequently, Monty Python's Flying Circus was a bit of a curate's egg of a show. There were brilliant sketches based on some Really Clever Silly ideas, there were songs - the Lumberjack song anyone? There were cartoons, there were Really Surreal items, there was even, occasionally, someone who'd turn up in a sketch, declare it 'too silly' and demand the next item - one way of keeping the show going I suppose. There was also quite a lot of swearing (cos this was on the BBC), poking fun at homosexuality, poking fun at transvestitism, a lot of poking fun at The Establishment - but that's been mainstream British humour since forever, and generally poking fun. Some of this was funny, some was hilarious, some just wasn't. I guess they put the provenly funny sketches together, with some modern material, for the O2 show.
I suppose the humour represented by Monty Python would be regarded as a bit almost 'gentle' these days. After all, we've had the 'Alternative** Comedy' of the eighties and nineties. These days comedy seems to be freighted with sarcasm. Sarcasm pretending to be 'ironic' and still trying to be amusing. Some of the best comedians, I think, are those who have taken a good look at life and base their comedy on that and who do so cleverly - Ken Dodd, Bill Bailey . . .
Meanwhile a group of septuagenarians have shown the entertainment world that they still have it, in spades. Well, all the intervening years should have served but to polish their skills in their craft, and having a totally biased audience can only help! Do not, Dear Reader, attempt to write off people because they are over a certain age. The Python team are in their seventies and still brilliant, and those who fought in and survived WWII are in their nineties and, mostly, still going strong. Let's hear it for the oldies!
Y'all have a good day now!
*I like (most of) the song, though verse 3 is not entirely accurate, IMHO!
**So what is the 'alternative' to comedy? Logic would dictate 'tragedy'???
You, Dear Reader, do not have to be old enough to remember the original series of Monty Python's Flying Circus, back in the Sixties and early Seventies, to know the show. Sketches and phrases have become so famous they've entered the language - witness their variant on 'sick as a parrot'! Everyone knows the Ministry of Silly Walks, Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition (that episode had only one swear word in it, a record) and, when we remember, we (Always) Look on the Bright Side of Life*!
So, did the audience at the First Night enjoy the show? Did they ever!
From what I remember seeing, which wasn't all that frequently, Monty Python's Flying Circus was a bit of a curate's egg of a show. There were brilliant sketches based on some Really Clever Silly ideas, there were songs - the Lumberjack song anyone? There were cartoons, there were Really Surreal items, there was even, occasionally, someone who'd turn up in a sketch, declare it 'too silly' and demand the next item - one way of keeping the show going I suppose. There was also quite a lot of swearing (cos this was on the BBC), poking fun at homosexuality, poking fun at transvestitism, a lot of poking fun at The Establishment - but that's been mainstream British humour since forever, and generally poking fun. Some of this was funny, some was hilarious, some just wasn't. I guess they put the provenly funny sketches together, with some modern material, for the O2 show.
I suppose the humour represented by Monty Python would be regarded as a bit almost 'gentle' these days. After all, we've had the 'Alternative** Comedy' of the eighties and nineties. These days comedy seems to be freighted with sarcasm. Sarcasm pretending to be 'ironic' and still trying to be amusing. Some of the best comedians, I think, are those who have taken a good look at life and base their comedy on that and who do so cleverly - Ken Dodd, Bill Bailey . . .
Meanwhile a group of septuagenarians have shown the entertainment world that they still have it, in spades. Well, all the intervening years should have served but to polish their skills in their craft, and having a totally biased audience can only help! Do not, Dear Reader, attempt to write off people because they are over a certain age. The Python team are in their seventies and still brilliant, and those who fought in and survived WWII are in their nineties and, mostly, still going strong. Let's hear it for the oldies!
Y'all have a good day now!
*I like (most of) the song, though verse 3 is not entirely accurate, IMHO!
**So what is the 'alternative' to comedy? Logic would dictate 'tragedy'???