Monty Python At 50 - Post-Python Picks

As we’ve seen with Rutland Weekend Television and The Rutles, the individual Pythons were keen to cash in on the ability that fame had bought them to pursue individual(ish) careers. While they had started to explore a life on the big screen, they were still drawn back to the lure of the small screen. The mid-70s saw Cleese, Palin, Jones and Chapman all embark on projects that were to achieve varying degrees of success.

Fawlty Towers
Episode shown:- Basil The Rat
As we all know, of all the post-Python projects, this was by far the most successful. It’s a very clear example of what makes a sitcom successful and, as I’ve probably bagned on about in the Comedy Archeology posts, that’s not necessarily the “sit”. What makes Fawlty Towers so enduringly popular are three main things - crystal clear characterisation, perfectly balanced performances and very funny dialogue. What is perhaps a little surprising when you try to step away from the familiarity and take a fresh look at it,  is just how traditional in structure and format Fawlty Towers is as a sitcom given Cleese’s background in both cutting-edge satire and absurdist sketch comedy. It’s a studio-based, largely single set, old school sitcom. It’s the three aforementioned elements that lift it out of that traditional mold. John Cleese in particular gives a very heightened very physical performance (he uses almost his entire body much of the time) that marks this out as something other than the ordinary but praise also has to go to Prunella Scales, Connie Booth and Andrew Sachs who all know exactly what they’re doing here. 

Ripping Yarns
Episode shown:- Tomkinson’s Schooldays
Another collaboration between Palin and Jones and shows their possibly conflicting affection for and disdain of traditional British stiff-upper-lip style adventure yarns. As will a lot of their stuff, it’s about puncturing the pomposity of those in positions of authority as well as introducing plenty of silliness to highlight the inherent silliness of the thing. All of those things are in fine evidence here - from the headmaster who insists on being thrashed by the boys through to the nailing of first years to the school walls and the official position of the School Bully. It also helps that a,ot of it was shot on location and on film, giving it more cinematic look (something that Jones and Palin were both keen on given that this was post-Holy Grail).

Out Of The Trees
Episode shown:- Pilot
Another of the BFI’s recoveries and very much one of the key missing links between the world of Python and another of my favourite comedy writers - Douglas Adams. This one-off pilot was presumed lost until a videotape copy made by Graham Chapman was discovered in 2005. The show itself was written by Chapman and Douglas Adams who had started working together on the fourth series of Monty Python after John Cleese’s departure*. It also features Simon Jones and Mark Wing-Davey who would go on to play Arthur Dent and Zaphod Beeblebrox respectively in the radio and TV versions of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. It’s a fun enough show with some nice moments and an attempt to link it all together with some fourth-wall breaking characters but it doesn't quite hit the heights. It may have done given time but, apart from some additional scripts being written, it never progressed past the pilot stage.


* Fun Fact:- Douglas Adams and Neil Innes are the only other people to be credited as writers across the four series of Monty Python outside of the main troupe.