Eric Idle Hijacked a Movie Review Show to Praise ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’

These days, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is obviously considered a comedy classic. But when it was first released back in 1975, there was no guarantee that people would like it. And specifically, there was no guarantee that film critics would like it. 

Several critics did enjoy the Pythons’ first original feature film. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby called it “a marvelously particular kind of lunatic endeavor,” and Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune, hailed Monty Python and the Holy Grail as “an incredibly silly film of great humor, brilliant design and epic insanity.” 

But other critics weren’t so impressed. Variety argued that it was “basically an excuse for set pieces, some amusing, others overdone.” Gene Siskel claimed that it “contained about 10 very funny moments and 70 minutes of silence” (he later argued that their follow-up, Monty Python’s Life of Brian was “much funnier than Holy Grail”). In the U.K., film critic and journalist Barry Norman hosted Film 75, the 1975 iteration of his long-running movie review series. And in one episode he tackled Monty Python and the Holy Grail – but looked distinctly like Eric Idle in a wig. 

In an archival clip that was recently shared on social media by a Python fan, the segment begins with “Barry Norman” telling viewers, “As you can see, I’m not quite myself this evening.” He then explains that he’s just gotten back from the “Rude Film Festival,” before launching into a hilarious monologue praising Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Idle-as-Norman then explains that the comedy “traces the entire history of Western philosophy from St. Thomas Aquinas to Bob Monkhouse. It’s a potty film about a quest for a pot. In this case, the Holy Grail, which if you didn’t know it, is a sort of FA cup for Christians.”

Following a film clip of Idle playing Brave Sir Robin, Idle/Norman states that “apart from the acting, the film isn’t half bad. Indeed it’s half good, and the other half’s magnificent.” He singles out the Python members for their performances, including John Cleese, who was apparently making his “first major film appearance since Last Tango in Redditch.” And he praises the film’s visual style, noting that “it looks very pretty, there’s castles and battles and blood and even some real ladies.”

Idle also throws in a couple of jokes containing a kernel of truth. “It is, as I’ve indicated, a British film, which means that they’re all underpaid,” he deadpans. “And, mercifully, and quite surprisingly for Monty Python, none of it’s been seen on television before,” which is seemingly a self-deprecating jab at And Now for Something Completely Different.

As for the real Barry Norman, he later told viewers that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is “considerably funnier than King Lear, Death of a Salesman and Oedipus Rex all put together.”