dd2e-cf82-5dbb-9596-ba53d961e325">
4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019
Copyright © David Morgan 2019
Cover design by Paula Russell Szafranski
Cover photograph © Michael Ochs Archives; Shutterstock
David Morgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008336806
Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008336813
Version: 2018-12-11
To Gwen Dibley,
who was (almost) there at the start
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
FOREWORD BY JOHN OLIVER
INTERVIEWEES
INTRODUCTION
PRE-PYTHON
BIRTH
TAKE-OFF
THE PYTHONS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
The Monosyllabic Minnesota Farm Boy
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY … THE SAME?
FEAR AND LOATHING AT THE BBC
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
THE US INVASION BEGINS
THE FOURTH (AND FINAL) SORTIE
CAUGHT IN PYTHON’S ORBIT
LIFE OF BRIAN
FLYING SOLO
THE MEANING OF LIFE
LE MORTE D’ARTHUR
THE ‘IF YOU COULD SAVE ONLY ONE THING YOU’VE PRODUCED’ CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY PYTHON
SPAMALOT
DÉJÀ REVUE
EXITING THE STAGE
FINAL THOUGHTS
FOOTNOTES
THE PYTHON OEUVRE
SOURCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
BY JOHN OLIVER
Writing about the importance of Monty Python is basically pointless. At this point, citing them as an influence is almost redundant. It’s assumed. In fact, from now on it’s probably more efficient to say that comedy writers should have to explicitly state that they don’t owe a significant debt to Monty Python. And if someone
