Python veterans Eric Idle and John Cleese show they still have what it takes

Comedy royalty put in an appearance in Adelaide this week and were given a reception of deserved reverence by the audience at the Entertainment Centre. That is apart from some drunken oaf (there’s always one!) who seemed to think that his boorish but inaudible yells from the stalls would somehow be funnier than what was happening on stage. The loudmouth was expertly put in his place by the combined cutting repartee of John Cleese and Eric Idle. Two of the founding members of the Monty Python phenomenon were in the city as part of their Australian tour, remembering old times with wit and whimsy and proving that it’s still possible to be a funny man way past middle age. It was a case of wry smiles rather than out and out belly laughs as images on the big screen vied with the pair recounting anecdotes while lounging around in two enormous red armchairs beneath the spotlights. Odd to think that these two Septuagenarians had started out with fellow comedic collaborators — Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman — all those years ago as an oddball late night crew on a haphazard sketch show on the BBC. Now decades later, the word Python has a meaning all of its own. The tale of how they all got together via connections including David Frost, Marty Feldman, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, the cast of Do Not Adjust Your Set and more is such well-trodden ground that I know the tale as if it was my own. And after all, it seems only a few months back when similar rememberings were recounted by Palin in his own post-Python one-man travelling show. Back in my schooldays, even though I was hooked on Python, I was never one of the many who could recite the Dead Parrot sketch off by heart or belt out the Lumberjack Song word for word. I left that to such Clitheroe sixth-form Python nuts as Adrian ‘Flec’ Fletcher, Keith Mitchell and the rest. Back then who would have thought a bunch of underground mirth-makers would roll on through Hollywood, branch out into their own separate entities and productions then come together again for road shows all over the planet. There were all age groups there the other night too. Just like wrinkly rock groups seem to expand their audiences via kids listening to mum and dad’s old music, a similar theme seems to have happened with the aura of Python. It was not such much the laughter or applause which struck but the warmth and goodwill that the collective onlookers exuded towards the still barmy Brits. It was a slick show. Following on from the banter and ballyhoo of the first set, the pair ‘did their own thing’ when they reappeared after the interlude. For Cleese, that meant the chance to veer off into non-Politically Correct racist jokes while Idle strummed some of his risque musical compositions on his guitar — notably the singalong encore of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life as featured in the crucifixion scene in The Life of Brian. It is testament to the enduring and embracing influence of Python that as this ditti brought the house down, other comedic eyes were enjoying the spectacle. Mrs Brown’s Boys comes from the other side of the comedy cosmos to the surreal eccentricity of Python. The Irish slapstick family-based hokum follows Cleese and Idle to the Entertainment Centre with Adelaide weekend dates. But all these artists, though different in style, are in their chosen profession for laughs and there, a few seats from us, were the Mrs Brown’s Boys creator Brendan O’Carroll and his wife, Jennifer Gibney, who also features in his madcap, throwback chaos. It was as if they were there to pay homage to a pair of legends. There were many others who shared those sentiments as the Python veterans delivered with real panache. And to top things off, Cleese and Idle seemed to enjoy themselves almost as much as the audience. If the Python pair visit your parish, be sure to catch them. As Idle himself repeatedly hinted in a Python sketch of long ago: “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more…”