A Monty Python Reunion Would Be ‘Pointless’ According to One Ex-Python
It’s officially been five decades since Monty Python and the Holy Grail first delighted audiences and boosted the coconut shell industry. To celebrate the iconic 1975 comedy’s 50th anniversary, the BBC recently chatted with every surviving member of Monty Python, minus John Cleese and Eric Idle, who were presumably too busy rage-tweeting about the U.S. president and/or each other.
But just because they’re available for interviews doesn’t mean that fans should be expecting another Python reunion any time soon, as one member made clear.
Michael Palin noted that The Holy Grail very nearly didn’t happen because not everyone in the group was into the idea of following up Monty Python’s Flying Circus with a movie. “It was by no means unanimous that we should do a film after the television series,” Palin recalled, pointing out that two of the Pythons were busy working on their own TV projects, which debuted that same year: Cleese’s Fawlty Towers and Idle’s Rutland Weekend Television.
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“But the two Terrys (Gilliam and Jones) wanted to direct a film, and I loved cinema as well,” Palin explained. “So that was the only way forward — not to make it three Python shows tacked (on) one after the other, but to make it a full cinematic experience. No other television series had, as far as I know, leapt into cinema, but we thought we’d have a go.”
Once filming began, tensions were still high. “Mike was fine, Terry was fine, but the others just hated wearing uncomfortable costumes,” co-director Terry Gilliam told the BBC. “They just wanted to be funny. But I said, ‘You’re missing the point. To be funny you’ve got to be real first. All this has got to be genuine.’ I just thought the humor would be much, much funnier if we could ground it in reality.”
How did the movie turn out so well despite the troupe’s behind-the-scenes clashes? Per Gilliam, Monty Python succeeded because those differing personalities worked uniquely well when combined together. “I just think Python was the perfect chemical balance, the six of us,” Gilliam theorized. “We’re all very different, and to put those six people in the same room, and they all basically agree on what they’re doing, it’s an extraordinary thing.”
But that miracle comedy formula was disrupted when Graham Chapman passed away in 1989, hence the reason why the surviving members of Monty Python have rarely reunited since then, except for the odd TV appearance, and the live shows that paid off their mounting legal debts. Gilliam’s “chemical balance” theory also explains why the group’s attempts to mount a new Monty Python film project following Chapman’s death never came to fruition.
With Terry Jones joining the choir invisible in 2020, Gilliam says that fan requests for a Monty Python reunion are more futile than ever. “Without any one of us, it was not the same,” Gilliam clarified. “When Graham died, it was already changing. And with Terry gone… people say, ‘Wouldn’t it be great for Python to get together again?’ It would be pointless to get together again! It wouldn’t work. It was a magical chemical balance. It was spectacular.”
Of course, should the Pythons get sued again, it’s entirely possible that we’ll get another live show starring anyone who’s still alive and some Tupac-like holograms.
