Monty Python Live! [Hardcover]

I am a huge Python fan and was looking forward to this book a great deal. Although I am generally happy with it I can't help but be a little disappointed.

The idea of the book is a good one: a chronicle of the Python's 70's tours of England, Canada and the U.S. and their early 80's appearance at the Hollywood Bowl. All six Pythons contribute (Graham's comments are from his book "A Liar's Autobiography") as do Neil Innes, Carol Cleveland and several others around the Python's orbit. There's some very funny stories about the tours but most hardcore Python fans will have heard the majority of these tales several times before over the years. However it is nice to have all these stories and comments laid out well and in chronological order.

That's the good part.

The bad part is that the stories of the tours take up less than half the book. The majority of the book are scripts of sketches that have been reprinted many times before. Do we really need to see the script of 'Dead Parrot' again?

The photos are generally quite good (I had not seen a number of them before) and the programme from the Hollywood Bowl show is an especially nice touch. The book is very well put together and it's great to have a product that all the Pythons at least put a little time into. Eric Idle should be commended for his editing of the material.

All in all I think most serious Python fans will want to check this out and it makes an oddly nice companion to the other recent Python book Monty Python's Tunisian Holiday: My Life with Brian which chronicles the Python's filming of 'Life of Brian' in the late 70's. If you love Python like I do then you should pick this one up. If you're a so-so Python fan then you can probably do better with The First 28 Years of Monty Python, Revised Edition or Monty Python Speaks.

This is a nice compilation centered around Python's touring life in the 70s and early 80s. There are recollections by all Python members, including the dead one, and the bits are taken together and meshed into a cohesive whole that reads well. The best part of the book are the scripts of the skits:
Dead Parrot
Nudge, Nudge
Lumberjack
Silly Olympics
and many more.

At the bargain price this book is a must for any Python fan.

While it's great to finally have the script of Monty Python's complete stage show in a glossy, gorgeously illustrated full-colour format (up till now the only way to sample it was via the highlights album "Live at Drury Lane" or the similarly bits-and-pieces movie "Live at the Hollywood Bowl") the book is still a disappointment when you remember the promise, on the back cover, of its being an "active collaboration" between all the surviving Pythons. It's easy to interpret the words "active collaboration" as meaning "We have reunited to do new material" but once again this is not quite the case.

I believe this is the fifth time the same old TV sketches have appeared in print and the fourth time Python have gotten together to tell the same old stories. To be fair, it's supposed to be a sort of history book, and, admittedly, they've added a few pages of fairly amusing new material (as well as adding Graham Chapman in the form of extracts from his autobiography, which is a nice touch) but, these days, "more" from Python always ends up feeling like less.

John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin's reminiscences do succeed so far as warmth and thoughtfulness are concerned but are deliberately unfunny, in what seems like a wasted opportunity. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, by contrast, try too hard to be funny and end up seeming distracted and remote, like this is all a terrible nuisance and they'd really rather be, and in fact are, doing something else right now, thank you very much, so push off.

Python's comedy, in this, their post-mortem, let's-celebrate-every-five-years-with-new-nostalgic-merchandise-phase, has become irritatingly self-referential rather than, well, creative. Even Idle's editing, so scrupulous in the 1970s, is relatively sloppy here, with typos and uninspired transitions. I even detected some very-slightly revised material from the Pythons' records and even the records' funny liner notes, for heaven's sake.

The kick of the original Monty Python's Flying Circus TV show was its comedic transitions; e.g.: the live-action concept of flapping, flying sheep leading to animations of aeronautic sheep. In the 1970s the Monty Python books and records were gorgeously and imaginatively produced and designed, continuing that surreal steam-of-consciousness that distinguished the TV shows, and as a result were rich in content, truly hilarious, delightful, creative, provocative, and immensely rewarding to fans, and were read and re-read and played and re-played (in those pre-home video days!!) with enormous amusement, enthusiasm, and affection. That was then.

Now that Python or their handlers have decided that every single little item they produced is a distinct, individual gem, the material has been re-packaged and re-packaged ad nauseum with nary a thought to that old bizarre cohesiveness (for lack of a better or smoother phrase) that really distinguished Python (Count me as a fan who didn't like Spamalot).

Like a lot of you baby boomers, Monty Python were a deep, much-loved influence on my life (To this day, as I go about my business, at least two Python quotes will spring up, quite unbidden, in my mind: Streuth!) But you have to wonder: if Python can't be bothered any more with half-hearted efforts like "Monty Python Live!", should we?

I like my copy and intend to keep it but that's only because I sold all my previous Python collection at the same time I sold my previous house. This book is all very glossy but slightly too-familiar. Caveat emptor.

To paraphrase Graham Chapman's Colonel, it may finally be time to stop Monty Python...for being too silly.