This year has proved to be such a gloomy year that I am determined to approach the coming Christmas festivities focusing on something light-hearted and happy for my readers.
Last summer, the Times of Malta produced extracts from a treasure trove of previously unpublished material from the Monty Python satirical comedy team: Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Michael Palin. They were a talented group who created their sketch comedy show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, first aired on television in 1969.
Their influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles’ impact on music.
For admirers of Monty Python, the search for undiscovered sketches had almost slowed to a standstill since the group members produced their last film, the outstanding Life of Brian, 37 years ago.
This all changed with the opening of Palin’s private archives earlier this year. Boxes deposited at the British Library, containing dozens of unusual script ideas, included two sketches written for Monty Python and the Holy Grail about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. One is about a Wild West bookshop and another features an amorous Pink Knight.
The sketches, typical of the group’s surreal silliness, have been prepared for public access alongside more than 50 notebooks filled with first drafts and ideas. They consist of mostly doodled notes of meetings that show how Holy Grail and the Pythons’ later film, Life of Brian, changed radically from early drafts. In both cases, the team cut material that would have caused controversy at the time.
For example, one of the most celebrated characters in Monty Python and the Holy Grail was Cleese as the fearless Black Knight, who responds to King Arthur chopping off his limbs in a duel by declaring “’Tis but a scratch”. The success of this sketch, which concludes with the limbless knight jeering at the king to come back so he can bite his legs off, came at the expense of a scene that was written but never performed.
This featured a character, a Pink Knight, whose manner might be considered homophobic today, but was intended then to lampoon old-fashioned attitudes towards homosexuality. It begins with a knight, standing “in a slightly camp pose”, who declares that King Arthur cannot cross a bridge unless the king gives him a kiss.“None of those sort of pecking ones the French try to get away with,” he says.
Arthur resists the Pink Knight’s advances and the two grapple before falling over, their armour entangled. At this point, a group of monks and pilgrims pass by giving disapproving looks as the king protests that it is not what it looks like: “Sorry about this. I’m afraid we’ve got our armour stuck.” To which the monks respond: “Disgusting. You could at least go indoors.”
It is hard to imagine how a film about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, filmed in the damp landscape of western Scotland, could include a scene in a Wild West saloon. Yet, buried in Palin’s archive is just such a sketch.
The Wild West sketch is typical of the incongruity of the comedy group’s approach.
A parched man stumbles out of the desert, desperate for a beer in the scorching heat, only to hear that they do not serve drinks because it is actually a bookshop. “The last bookshop before you get to Mexico,” the man behind the counter drawls proudly.
So great was the cultural impact of Life of Brian that the closing number, when crucifixion victims sing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, has today become the most popular choice for British funerals
When the man pleads that he must have a drink, one of the reading cowboys suggests that he try the local Native American trading post but is told that they stopped serving drinks when they chose to specialise in modern European literature.
My favourite new script is the draft sketch for Life of Brian, based on the idea of Lazarus going to see his doctor with a case of “post-death depression”.
The sketch opens at the doctor’s surgery in Bethany High Street.
Doctor: “Next.” Lazarus enters. Doctor: “Hello Lazarus.” He shakes his hand… “I certainlydidn’t expect to see you again…well, how are you?”
Lazarus: “Not too good.”
Doctor: “Oh dear, what’s the problem?”
Lazarus: “Well, I’ve not felt great ever since I died.”
Doctor: “No, no, no… Well I think what you’ve got is a touch of post-death depression. You see, it’s all very well for Jesus to bring people back to life and I’m all for it. I mean… It’s lovely to see you again but I don’t honestly think that Jesus – and he’s a lovely man, I’ve nothing against him personally – but I do not think he is quite aware of the strain that sort of indiscriminate resurrection can have on patients and, indeed, on doctors…
“I mean, you were only in there four days and it wasn’t the hottest part of the summer but a chap yesterday came to see me – nice fellow, great friend – he wanted me to bring his brother back to life for a party and he’d been dead 14 weeks!
“I mean, people don’t seem to realise that we doctors work from eight in the morning, every morning, sometimes from seven, and we are on call until seven or even eight at night. Now that’s damn near a 12-hour day Lazarus and, quite honestly… if some of my patients didn’t die, I’d never get home in the evening.”
Lazarus: “No, no, I see.”
Doctor: “I’m sorry to moan on about my problems. It’s just that I do sometimes wish that Jesus would stop and consider other people for a moment.”
Alongside the Lazarus sketch in Palin’s archive is correspondence from John Mortimer, QC, the Monty Python’s lawyer, advising which lines were legally contentious. The offence of blasphemous libel was abolished in the UK only 10 years ago and for the creators of Life of Brian it was a threat to their livelihoods. The Lazarus sketch never needed to be checked.
Life of Brian, which featured only a handful of biblical characters and fleeting glimpses of Jesus to show that he was distinct from the central character, was Monty Python’s crowning moment as satirists.
So great was its cultural impact that the closing number, in which victims on the crucifixion sing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, has today become the most popular choice for British funerals.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece