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EDIT NEWS: Monty Python - Press Coverage 1972 |
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The Times, 20th October 1972
[Nothing ever changes in the world of the laughtrack.]
MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS
BBC 1
Barry Norman
It is not enough merely to say that Monty Python's Flying Circus is back and extremely welcome. Some sort of tribute should be paid to it, most of all by the BBC, which still seems to regard it with grave suspicion as unsuitable for viewing save at the tail end of the evening.
This shows a lack of confidence somewhere because Monty Python is still the most original and anarchic comedy show to be seen currently on television. It is, I think, a question of attitude rather than content. Other comedy programmes might, conceivably, have ended up with a multiplicity of Alan Whickers marooned on a South Sea island and reduced to interviewing each other because the world had run short of rich men. Other programmes, too, might have shown Mrs Jean-Paul Sartre as a slatternly housewife with a broom in her hand and a cigarette end permanently attached to her lower lip. But I doubt very much whether any other programme would have brought off either of these dubious jokes quite so outrageously or with quite so much sense of fun.
The humour of Monty Python, whether provided by the actor-writers or by the brilliant animated illustrations of Terry Gilliam, is basically gentle and unlikely to cause offence. Even Alan Whicker, even indeed Mrs Jean Paul-Sartre herself, would, I imagine, have been moved to laughter. * So probably would any policemen or judges who happened to be looking in, in spite of the Monty Python's judge's roar of "Screw the Bible, let's get on with the case", or the Monty Python policeman's uncontrollable habit of hitting anyone within reach with his truncheon.
Why then should this very funny show not be given a run earlier in the evening? No doubt the BBC has its reasons. No doubt it also has reasons for the canned laughter or studio audience or both, neither of which is remotely necessary. Has Monty Python always been afflicted with built-in laughter? Memory says not, although memory may well be wrong. If it is I can only say that last night's laughter was even more intrusive than usual and should be ruthlessly amputated from all future episodes. In fact, the highest tribute one can pay to Monty Python is perhaps that it is the one comedy show that has no need of such aids. **
* In fact Alan Whicker sent the team a nice letter with
'you'll be hearing from my solicitor'-type amusement
therein.
** Extraordinary. An early-70s case of Series 2 I'm
Alan Partridge syndrome there. The truth of course
is that the laughter in Series 3 Flying Circus is more
evident - more audience members revelling in being 'in
on the joke'. All part and parcel of a show's growing
audience (we'd argue that it wasn't until Series 4 that this
actually got out of hand to the detriment of the overall
sound-mix and the team being able to surf the laughter
properly).
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Sunday Telegraph, 22nd October 1972
[Not really that much about Python, but interesting nonetheless.]
THE LONGEST DAY
TELEVISION PHILIP PURSER
Only such late joys as Monty Python's Flying Circus (B.B.C. 1, to whom grateful thanks for favours received) save me from peevishly endorsing everything Sir Hugh Greene said in his Granada lecture.
Trying to take an interest in those new I.T.V. midday programmes left me with a headache, heartburn and hangover, as after too many noonday drinks, Lunchtime O'Television lurches to his typewriter and reports on... Jeez, what was there? They all blur together.
Wait a minute, those honest Yorkshire farm folk snapping home truths to each other - that would be Emmerdale Farm (Y.T.V.). It worked well enough with some of the characters some of the time, notably when matriarchal Anne (Sheila Mercier) greeted the return of the prodigal Jack with a terse "Pull up another chair, lad, there's food on the table." It became tiresome when extended to practically every human encounter, especially the instant feud between Jack and the hoity-toity horse-riding Marion from up at t' big house, all because Daddy's factory once poisoned the fish in the local river.
"He's very sorry." "Aye, so are the fish" - or did I make that up? I warmed to Toke Townley, the unsung veteran of a million character parts who here is required to sit on the edge of events and make pithy, wise-old-elder comment upon them. Townley milks each observation for about nine times what its worth, and is a pleasure to watch.
His and Hers (H.T.V.) is a game show conducted by one Alan Taylor - not the other, alas - in which husbands and wives are quizzed on each other's simpler likes and dislikes before an audience of the elderly. Gerry Atrix, the senior citizens' talent agent seems also to have handled the casting of Lunchtime with Wogan (A.T.V.) wherein this person seeks to enlist the ideas, requests and contributions of those about him. John Junkin in the comparable Junkin (Southern) displays a truer matiness without squeezing the charm out so determinedly.
I could go on, but it would be fairer to take further specimens later on. To be honest I find the whole idea of daytime television about as appetising as blancmange for breakfast. I can see the argument on behalf of shift workers and the housebound. I can't see that much of what we've seen so far meets many needs. I certainly hope it doesn't create any.
Even more depressing was the debut of Full House (B.B.C. 2). In structure this sounded exactly the sort of thing for Saturday night: a not-too-demanding miscellany from which you can pick and choose - the approximate times of separate items are given in advance. I'm having to write this ahead of last night's edition but it will have had to be sensational to erase the impression left by the first session.
We had much trouble at home in deciding which items were meant to be funny and which holy. The pop group at the beginning was clearly a parody of every caterwauling group there ever was. But what about Cathy Berberian, billed as the star turn? So arch and mysterious were her little nods and winks that my wife was convinced it would turn out to be Tim Brooke-Taylor under a Pompadour wig.
The much-vaunted playlet, which is to be a feature of the show was contributed by E. A. Whitehead, said to be a force in the theatre, and would have poised further problems had it not dragged on longer and to less purpose than any joke would allow. Besides, Mr Whitehead - who is not spoiled by modesty - appeared afterwards to discuss the work with the tame audience, and evidently believed he had said something revealing about authoritarianism in education.
When I think of the many talented and interesting writers in television and radio, this creeping to the fashionable theatre fills me with despair. How can a previously good editor like Bill Morton, for many years with "Man Alive," be so insecure? Joe Melia supervised proceedings with the sickly courage of someone who has been bluffing a full house - to pursue the analogy with cards implicit in the title - but knows that he's only got a pair of threes, one with the wrong pattern on the back.
About Sir Hugh and his lecture and subsequent appearance, which didn't add much, on Late Night Line Up (B.B.C. 2): no-one has made a more respectable conspectus of the broadcasting scene lately, I'd subscribe to several of his recommendations and many of his strictures. The difficulty arises when you try to relate the lovely generalisations to actual programmes.
Sir Hugh lamented the tyranny of the long-running series. This is something that happens. I never want to see another "Crime of Passion." But there are more short series than long, and within the format such particular use of it - the long play - as has been made recently by Robin Chapman and Philip Mackie and Julia Jones. There are series such as "Omnibus" or "Horizon" which accommodate individual items just as exciting as those one-off programmes to which Sir Hugh looked back with nostalgia. I'm all for innovation and extending the frontiers, but the fact remains that the innovations we've had lately have been awful.
So by Circle Line back to "Monty Python," which began not with the prophesied edition from Tooting but with the shaky reconstruction of an Icelandic saga - a theme cheerfully shoved aside whenever they tired of it and finally abandoned altogether in favour of the massed reportage of a desert island by a posse of Alan Whickers. Formating precisely as the R.A.F.'s Red Pelicans John Cleese, Graham Chapman and company seemed in and out of shot in identical horn-rims, firing off bursts of skilfully orchestrated Whickeric.
It's not difficult to catch that peculiar blend of alliteration and overstrained imagery. What made this so funny was the insane multiplication of the victim. Poor Alan is also teased in the Stanley Baxter Picture Show (L.W.T.) which most areas see tonight. Baxter is a brilliant mimic: his Gielgud and his Sir Ralph Richardson (also tonight) are uncanny; but there is a clockwork jokiness to much if his material epitomised by the cute variations on actual names - Michael Scrott for Michael Scott, and so on. His Alan Wicked (sic)is all to predictable. Is it possible that the B.B.C. shuffled their running order simply to get in ahead of
[the last word is missing]
PETER CLAYTON will be back next week.
DEBORAH STARTTON is on holiday. |
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The Sun, 23rd November 1972
HOW THE MONTY PYTHON MADNESS KEEPS GOING
By CHRIS KENWORTHY
Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC 1, 10.15) has been to TV what the Goon Show was to radio - a turning point in humour.
But unlike the Goon Show authors, who were surprised by its success, Michael Palin, who with Terry Jones forms one of the writer-actor teams in Python, knew what was coming.
"The Goon Show came right out of the blue," he said. "But there were all kinds of signposts for Python.
"Anyone who saw At Last - The 1948 Show, and Do Not Adjust Your Sets, or some of the Marty Feldman sketches, could have seen it coming."
ANCESTORS
Since the 1948 Show was one of its ancestors, and Do Not Adjust Your Sets was written by Palin and Jones, it seemed almost inevitable that people like John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle would eventually get together.
But, curiously enough, it was frustration which finally united them.
"We all had the same kind of experience when we sent in sketches to shows like Frost and Marty and Roy Hudd," said Michael.
"They used them, all right. But with the actor making his contribution, and the director having his ideas, somehow we lost control of what we wanted to see.
"Being able to act out own sketches was the answer.
LAUGH
"We write our sketches - I write with Terry, John writes with Graham, and Eric works on his own.
"Then we all get together, and see which ones make all of us laugh.
Even off screen , and away from their work, the Monty Python crowd find it hard to take things seriously.
"We all agreed that, when we were interviewed, we would say how awkward the others were to work with - drop hints about tender egos and things," said Michael.
"But it's not really. It's rather pleasant working with them, and we all get on very well". |
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© 1972 various authors | |
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