Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography

by Eric Idle

So much has been written about Monty Python. There have been memoirs, diaries, books about the Pythons, books by the Pythons about the other Pythons, articles about the books about the Pythons, countless interviews, autobiographies, documentaries…so many documentaries. I honestly think there are more hours of documentary about Python than there are hours of Python. So, to the mass of mangled memories do I now

George Harrison once said to me, “If we’d known we were going to be the Beatles we would have tried harder.” I think the same could be said of Monty Python. How on earth could we possibly know we would become them?

Why was Monty Python so successful? Was it really so very different? Of course it wasn’t. People seem to think that it somehow sprang full-blown from the head of some mad media Medusa, but that’s not true at all. In the mid-Sixties, there were a host of similar shows all evolving, banging into each other and disintegrating: The Frost Report; I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again; Twice a Fortnight; Broaden Your Mind; How to Irritate People; The Complete and Utter History of Britain… All of the eventual Pythons were involved with all of the eventual Goodies in one show or another.

We were determined not to make the usual kind of BBC light entertainment show where someone said, “And now for something completely different” and some prick sang.

Significantly, Monty Python was not released in America until 1974, after we had finished on U.K. TV, so we were not seduced by personal fame. We didn’t have to cope with the hot blast of instant celebrity that the Saturday Night Live cast faced.

Just look at the work we managed to achieve in the fourteen years between 1969 and 1983. Five movies, forty-five TV shows, five stage shows, five books, and countless records, including a hit single. So yes, we did okay, but fame still beckoned.

I wrote a play, adapting the ninety-eight characters in the movie to a more manageable eight, and then John and I recorded half a dozen songs and sent them off to the guys. Amazingly, they were all intrigued by the idea, they loved “The Song That Goes Like This,” and wonderfully they said yes. Spamalot was born.

I couldn’t get Act Two to work and I felt we needed something familiar near the beginning, something the audience could relax to, a little moment for Patsy, where he tries to cheer up the despairing King Arthur. So, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” which started off in Brian, eventually ended up in Grail, and on Broadway.

Spamalot changed my life. I thought the play would be funny, but I had no idea it would be so successful and so well received. Mike Nichols was, of course, the key. Not only did he reassure the other Pythons that here was someone responsible enough to be left in charge of their baby, but as he was both a comedian and a fantastic director, the play would be in the very best of hands.

Mike brought a high seriousness to Spamalot. He insisted the actors always take it seriously. “If you don’t take it seriously, why should the audience?” Sitting behind

So, at the opening preview in Chicago the show took off like a rocket. The audience was so into it. “He Is Not Dead Yet” made them yell with happiness.

“The Song That Goes Like This” killed. “Find Your Grail” was electrifying. We were all smiles at the intermission. Act Two opens with “Bright Side,” and they actually whistled along. “Now for it,” said Mike next to me, as what he insisted on calling “The Jew Song” approached. David Hyde Pierce sang, clearly enunciating: You won’t succeed on Broadway… If you don’t have any…Jews.

We were led out to the front of the Shubert to face the electrical storm of the cameras amidst cheering and screaming from the crowd across the street. The Pythons were all gracious and affectionate and then we disgorged into the celebrity-packed theater. Whoopi Goldberg said hello. Lorne Michaels smiled. I spied Barbara Walters and Mike Wallace from 60 Minutes, and there was a general air of anticipation. Soon the lights dimmed, the overture played to laughter, and we were under way with “Finland.”

But fate had one more surprise in store for us. After a very long and occasionally interesting evening, the inestimable Hugh Jackman read out the name of Best Musical of 2005 and, incredibly, it was Monty Python’s Spamalot. Wow!

Shortly after our final show we learned the terrible news that our friend, the wonderful, funny, extraordinary Robin Williams, was dead. And unbelievably, by his own hand. I will never be reconciled to his death, but I will remain forever grateful for his life. He brought me so much joy, so much laughter. For thirty-four years he was my pal. Nobody was ever quite like Robin.

Robin, who from the moment he bounced onstage turned this dangerous, hostile crowd into a docile chorus of grateful adorers who hung on his every line and laughed at his every riff. I have never seen a funnier man. It’s as if Einstein suddenly decided, “Fuck it, I’ll do stand-up.”

When Robin and Valerie came to stay with us in France, Mork & Mindy was the most popular show on American TV and Robin could go nowhere without being mobbed.

Seeing our French hideaway encouraged him to buy a country place for himself up in Napa. He even managed to escape the shackles of alcohol and cocaine shortly after John Belushi overdosed in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont.

What a terrible waste of a great talent. So many more gifted young comedians would follow. Robin had been one of the last people to visit John and see him alive that night.

Robin was besieged by paranoia and so confused he couldn’t remember his lines while filming a movie. He was wrongly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and the telltale signs of Lewy body dementia in his brain were not discovered until the autopsy. Now all we have left are memories. It was too sudden, too soon, and too awful. At his memorial that September in San Francisco, my daughter Lily and I sang a little song for him. Goodnight, Robin Thanks for all the laughs… It still doesn’t seem real. I can’t bear it. It’s too fucking sad. Shortly afterwards Mike Nichols died, and then Garry Shandling, and then Carrie Fisher. It was all too much. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 31 TOGETHER AGAIN AT LAST…FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME