Yellowbeard

by Graham Chapman, David Sherlock

Of the many blackguards who left their bloodstained mark on history, the foulest of them all was the pirate Yellowbeard. His name struck terror into the hearts of gentlefolk in the days when Queen Anne was a monarch rather than a table. Until recently, however, Yellowbeard's exploits were lost in the swirling mists of time. That oversight has now been corrected with this hilarious spoof on the pirate adventure genre. According to the author, Monty Python member Graham Chapman, Yellowbeard tells "the true story of Treasure Island, all the bits that Robert Louis Stevenson didn't want to tell. Yellowbeard is a vile buccaneer so scurrilolus he makes Long John Silver look like a tinhorn. He puts 'rat' back into 'pirate." Yellowbeard contains Chapman's original novel and screenplay, plus interviews with John Daly, the film's producer, and cast members Cheech and Chong, Nigel Planer, Peter Boyle, and others. Its timely release coincides with the Broadway premier of Monty Python's Spamalot.

Genres: Humor, Film, Pirates

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Graham Chapman was an English comedian, actor, writer, physician and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe. He was also the lead actor in their two narrative films, playing King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the title character in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Reviews

[Dominick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book gives Yellowbeard far more attention than it deserves: a fairly long introduction, one of the screenplays (substantially different from the filmed version, apparently; I saw it only once when it came out and don't remember it well), and the novelization. The screenplay is mildly amusing, if overly-reliant on rape jokes and other cheap laughs. The novel, however, is dire. It frequently fails even to be grammatically sound. Very disappointing, overall.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is very little to say about this rather shallow novelisation of the Graham Chapman comedy film ‘Yellowbeard’. To be honest you would find more enjoyment from watching the film, even though the 1983 movie is rated rather badly by critics. Whilst I admit the movie has its faults it is still an interesting and somewhat engaging artefact of British comedy history. Unfortunately this book does nothing to add to one’s enjoyment of the film and is not sufficiently different enough from the movie to give one any real new pleasures. In fact the only reason one would probably want to read this book will be if you have not seen the film. The only reason one would probably want to own the book is because of its status as a collectible book amongst those of us who are Monty Python fans, or as I said before interested in British comedy history.

There are some useful screenshots taken from the film that are included in the book, and thanks to the simplicity of the prose and brevity of the story one can knock the text over in an hour or so max. At the end of the day I don’t think I can really recommend this to anyone except those who are interested in Graeme Chapman’s work or the post Python film corpus.