29

THE LAST LAUGH

The Python Reunion, O2 Arena, London, July 2014

Of course, we said we’d never do it. It could never happen. It wouldn’t be possible. We were too old. Graham was still dead, and until he came back we would wait. What we hadn’t foreseen is we would all be in our seventies and a million quid in debt. So, the Python reunion was really thanks to the man who pursued us for seven years in a free partnership with a lawyer, looking for ways to get more money out of Python’s income from Spamalot. A success of any sort always brings people crawling out of the woodwork, and Spamalot was no exception, but I must say I was surprised when one of the producers of The Holy Grail sued us, despite the huge amounts of money we had already given him.

In the end, it cost us over a million pounds in legal fees simply to defend ourselves, and even though he’d lost or abandoned most of his claims by the time the trial began, surprisingly the judge accepted his one extraordinary claim that we had promised to treat him as “the seventh Python.” As if? Despite the fact his contract said otherwise, and that Mike, Terry J., and I testified in court that it was nonsense, and John Cleese gave a scathing deposition that “he had more chance of being considered the fourth Kennedy brother than the seventh Python,” the judge shocked us when he upheld this claim. As I said at the time, “it has restored my faith in British injustice.” But we were still a million pounds in debt.

I tracked down my old friend Jim Beach, now cunningly spinning Queen around the world with Adam Lambert, and asked him if he’d come to London for an emergency Python meeting and give us his advice. He flew in from Switzerland, listened to our story, and delivered his professional opinion.

“You’re totally fucked,” he said.

“However,” he added, “if you played one night live at O2, you could pay this debt off immediately.”

There was a very swift response.

“Yes,” we all said.

So, the final Python reunion began.

Our promoter Phil McIntyre immediately persuaded us to do five shows. Might as well, we thought, although John was very doubtful we could sell that many seats. Since everyone else was busy, I volunteered to put the script together and direct the show, and pissed off to the country to work on it. I asked everyone to let me know which sketches they wanted to do for the last time, and had some interesting responses. (John chose “Gumby Brain Specialist,” which we rehearsed but cut before opening.) I set to work to create a show with corkboards, cards, and colored Sharpies.

My problem was the O2. It’s a huge arena. Even if we were on big screens, we would still be dwarfed by the sheer size of the stadium. I didn’t want our final appearance to look like a rip-off of our last live outing at the Hollywood Bowl thirty years earlier, or simply be bad. This was the Python farewell; it simply had to be good. And different. But how?

Fortunately, my Broadway experience came to the rescue. Of course, it had to be a musical show, with a big band and lots of singers and dancers to surround us ancient septuagenarians with energy and dancing. That way we could do popular Python songs, some publicly for the first time, and, more important, I could add the amazing Arlene Phillips as choreographer so she could re-create “Every Sperm Is Sacred,” which she had done so brilliantly in the Meaning of Life movie. Having Arlene and her tireless energy made all the difference. Now we had a real show, with a live orchestra and singers and dancers. We could do a big final version of “Lumberjack” sung by Michael and end up with “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as a grand finale. I linked things together as in the old Python days: Yorkshire miner, into the Blackitts, into the pope, into “Every Sperm Is Sacred”…etc.

When I returned to London for the read-through it was a love fest. The Pythons were all very pally, greeting familiar faces in the packed room. I’d realized we must have Carol Cleveland—of course, she really was a seventh Python, and had been with us all those times on the road. In a tiny, packed hotel room off St. James’s, we read the script aloud to our new department heads, stage designers, set designers, costume designers (including the wonderful Hazel Pethig, our original wardrobe lady), choreographer, wigmakers, lighting designer, sound, video, musical director (John Du Prez, natch), and producers. The read-through went very well and the Pythons requested only one change: John wanted to cut the Yorkshire miner sketch, which, though one of my favorites, was fine by me. I was happy they liked the script.

We did a day of press announcements and interviews, and then appeared on The Graham Norton Show with a slightly tipsy John, who was very naughty after sneaking a sly vodka in the greenroom. Inevitably, another two TV documentaries were commissioned—one by Alan Yentob for the BBC, and another that would follow the making of the show with backstage access.

The first inkling we had that something very exciting was happening came while I was working in my hotel room with Arlene and John Du Prez on the musical numbers. Holly Gilliam, Terry’s younger daughter and one of the Python managers, rang to say that the tickets had gone on sale and they had sold out in thirty-four seconds!

What?

They were immediately releasing the tickets for the next four shows.

She called back. Those had all sold out in thirty minutes.

What the hell?

Now they were asking would we consider doing five more shows. Holy shit. We were thrilled and a little humbled and went back to our meeting.

“We’d better be good,” I said.

The first stage design was a disaster. It was a high-tech, rock-and-roll set with multiple levels and stages rising and descending from below. The thought of any of the Pythons falling into one of the holes during a blackout was insupportable. The show would be over instantly. So I suggested low roll-out platforms with sets built behind, all on one level, with a high bridge for dancers, no holes to fall into, and a Gilliamesque Victorian cutout theater look. Ric Lipson and STUFISH, the amazing design company, did a fantastic job. Their new set looked great, like a child’s toy theater, incorporating an enormous central screen for film and animation, plus two side screens for live close-ups. It wasn’t cheap but then again, we were inundated with offers to tour the world.

Directing the show took up most of my time from September to July. Unfortunately, because they were all busy, I would only get the Pythons two weeks before the first performance. We would get just three days of us alone in a rehearsal room to work on the sketches, and then we would be on to our big stage, rigged up in Acton in a large rehearsal space, with all the video and lighting and sound crews present. Knowing this time limitation, I had doubles for all the Pythons so we could rehearse their entrances, exits, and blocking with the dancers. It meant too that lighting could have something to focus on and the video projectors could learn their cues. When they appeared on set for the first time, they had someone to hold their hand and walk them around for their individual cues. This was good, as the set was huge, and the costume changes quick and complicated. I also wanted an invited audience for three nights up in Acton, so we could at least get used to playing together again, and the whole company could get the feel of a live show. Fortunately, I had great help from my assistant director, the indefatigable and tireless C. J. Ranger, and of course, the delightful and always supportive Arlene Phillips.

Before the Pythons came in, I spent an incredible June day filming on the banks of the Cam by King’s College, with Stephen Hawking and Professor Brian Cox under a perfect cerulean Cambridge sky. Brian and I had been friends since he came to a recording of What About Dick? in LA. He was a Northerner like me, from Oldham, where my parents had married. When my mum came to visit me on the set of Baron Munchausen in Rome, I said, “Mum, Rome is built on seven hills.”

“Oh,” she replied, “just like Oldham.”

Brian and I shared a love of cosmology, champagne, and Chinese food, which we found went well together. We could talk for hours because he knows everything and I know nothing, which, of course, doesn’t stop me arguing. Once you get to the Universe and whether life in it is common or unique, you leave the realms of science for philosophy and I can bullshit philosophy with the best of them.

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant, who was very rarely stable.

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table…

I have always loved the fact that the wonderful Christopher Hitchens knew every word of the “Bruces’ Philosophers Song,” and would often sing it publicly at the end of his talks. You can see him do it on YouTube.

Professor Brian, so called to distinguish himself from the actor Brian Cox, whose twinkling buttocks we once saw bouncing naked in a kilt running full pelt toward a castle in Scotland, would always complain that my lyrics to “The Galaxy Song” were wrong. I kept telling him that they were scientifically correct thirty-five years ago and it was science that had changed. More precise measurements have been made since then, but these figures were accurate for 1982 when we wrote the song. But even though I updated them, he still wouldn’t have it.

“The sun is not the source of all our power, there is uranium in the core of the earth…”

“Yes, but there wouldn’t be uranium there but for the sun.”

“That’s not true.”

“Well, there wouldn’t be a solar system for it to be in but for the sun…”

He wasn’t having any of it, so I decided to tease him and wrote a film piece for him, where, immediately after I sing “The Galaxy Song,” he appears on-screen complaining about my lyrics on the riverbank at King’s College. In the middle of his complaint he is run over by Stephen Hawking in his wheelchair. Brian is such a good sport, he was totally up for this. He emailed Stephen to ask if he would consider doing it, and Stephen immediately responded yes, so there we were shooting this gag on the banks of the Cam. We used a stunt double for Stephen for the actual running over of Brian, although he himself fell gamely and perfectly eight times like a pro. We then went to Stephen’s incredible modern Cambridge science department to film him against green screen with wind ruffling his hair. While we were talking to him, Stephen was busy writing something. He then played it back.

“Way too pedantic,” he had ad-libbed.

Luckily, we were filming him and, we used that line on the audio after he runs over Brian.

In the car on the way home Brian said, “We just spent a whole day filming with one of the most extraordinary minds on the planet, and all we did was a silly gag.”

“Brilliant,” I said.

Professor Hawking came to the final night at O2. There was a huge laugh as he ran over Brian on-screen, then a laugh at his own line, and applause as he set off into space in his wheelchair singing “The Galaxy Song.” In 2015, with his permission, we released a special single version of him singing the song. When he died in 2018, that image of him singing in space was all over the Internet. Now, at O2, we stuck a spotlight on him and the whole place exploded. They cheered him to the rafters. It was so moving it made me cry, and when his nurse raised his arm to wave and acknowledge the applause, I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

After the show, he came backstage to the party and seemed really happy to be there. I said to him, “I think you, me, and Professor Cox have a great future in comedy.”

Before we opened, thanks to our lighting guru Patrick Woodroffe, Mick and the Stones released a wonderful video ad-lib rant about the sheer nerve of wrinkled, British oldies coming out of retirement, charging exorbitant prices to gouge the public. A video so funny and accurate that many newspapers altogether missed it was a gag.

On July 1, 2014, eighteen thousand people were packed into the impossibly vast space of the O2 Arena for opening night, the first of ten sold-out shows. We were there by the skin of our teeth: now, were we ready?

We were ushered into our slightly renamed TARDIS as the overture began to play. We sang along quietly, each in our own thoughts. Terry G. giggling nervously.

“Oh, shut up, Gilliam,” said John to his old friend and bête noire.

They opened the door and sprayed smoke on us. Might as well have been gas. I felt incredibly close to these four men dressed as Mexican mariachi players, accompanied of course by a kangaroo, the rather brilliant Samuel Holmes, whom we had co-opted from Spamalot. God knows what he must have been thinking.

We heard the overture ending and the audience yelling in anticipation. The TARDIS was shoved forward onto the enormous stage.

Here we go.

The doors open. Jonesy bursts out in front of me. The crowd goes wild. We step forward into the bright lights, basking in the shower of love. Anticipating we wouldn’t be able to start speaking for quite some time amidst the loud response from the audience, I had put in a pacing moment right here. Photo Opportunity, it said behind us, triggering thousands of cell phones blistering into flash as we posed. A vast wave of sound. A huge bark of approval.

We’re back!

Though it had cost a lot, I was confident we could amortize this expense on the road, because we had strongly tempting offers for tours of the U.S., Australia, and South Africa. Michael Palin, however, was not keen and nixed all proposals. That was certainly his right. Although some taller members were a little cross. Especially when he immediately set off on a solo tour of Australia…but I understood what Mike felt. Backstage one night, with both of us dressed in glam drag for “Camp Judges,” he had said, “This has been fun, but we don’t want to keep on doing this do we, El?” I knew what he meant. It was fun, but come show eighty-seven and where are we again tonight? I didn’t fancy it that much either. So when it became clear that we would not be doing any more, I suggested to Jim Beach that we make the last night a big worldwide event, screening live on TV and in cinemas all around the globe. I liked the idea of doing a final show. We still liked each other, we had had a lot of fun, and we had made thousands of people very happy. Terry J.’s memory was fading fast and I think that was the smartest way to end. It seemed classier than petering out in Peterborough or Cleveland, and so the metaphorical curtain came down on Monty Python on July 20, 2014. Eighteen thousand people for ten nights at London’s O2 Arena had come to see us live onstage, performing together again for the first time since the Hollywood Bowl in 1980. The final night was live on TV and in selected theaters around the world. You couldn’t have written a better exit than us all singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” for the very last time together. It was a fine farewell to Monty Python.

The final curtain.