I did promise a couple of weeks ago to start a series of posts about my favourite British comedy shows, and in case anyone is wondering whether I've forgotten this promise, I can now confidently answer: no, I haven't.
Although I'd watched loads of British comedy before I was aware of Monty Python - and although there were many brilliant TV comedies before The Flying Circus came along (chronologically speaking), I think no other show has had quite the same influence (on me, or on British comedy) over the years. Also, as it's now the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of the series, so I think Pythons are a very good place to start.
For me, the first encounter with the Python phenomena didn't come through the TV series, but through the films. When I was around 17, YLE broadcast The Holy Grail and The Life of Brian, and especially the first of those hit me over the head with the proverbial rubber chicken. To this day, it's one of the few films I know by heart, and quote at unsuspecting people (the only other films are A Hard Day's Night and Help!. I suppose I was a bit of a Beatles geek as a teenager).
There are so many brilliant bits in The Holy Grail that it's hard to pick only one. However, the Knights Who Say 'Ni' sequence is one of the highlights of the film, as it includes not only the bewildered King Arthur and his long-suffering entourage, the wonderfully silly Knights, and Roger the Shrubber - but also Brave Sir Robin and his minstrels (who get eaten towards the end of the film. There are just so many random elements around that it's amazing they hang so well together.
After wearing out the VHS tape on which I'd preserved both of the aforementioned films, I finally got to the real thing - the Flying Circus TV series, which of course blew me away (and gave me loads of whole new quoting material). I generally like the more 'literary' stuff (like the sketch in which John Cleese and Graham Chapman - dressed as suburban housewives - get into an argument about existentialism, and sail to France in order to ask Jean-Paul Sartre which one of them is right); the 'Dead Parrot' sketch, for instance, is a bit too shouty and violent to my taste. However, one of my absolute favourites is the 'Cheese Shop' sketch, which works along similar lines, but is much more clever and verbally acrobatic (it also features some lovely dancing).
After watching this, I always get a craving for Venezuelan beaver cheese, for some reason.
As there's so much good stuff to choose from, it's nigh impossible to name my absolute favourite Flying Circus sketch. This court scene one, however, encapsulates many things that I adore about Monty Python. It's got Eric Idle giving a mock-Olivier address to the court, John Cleese hopping about in wig and gown, Graham Chapman both as a voluable lady and a keen-eyed police inspector, and Michael Palin as Cardinal Richelieu (complete with pink robes and a personal microphone). Yet my favourite bit comes at the very end.
A guy in a suit of armour, wielding a rubber chicken. That would come in handy at my Doctoral defence ceremony, as a kind of rhetorical device - in case my carefully prepared argumentation fails to impress the audience and my opponent.
(In case any of my friends are reading: this is what I'd like for Christmas. One suit of armour, one rubber chicken, and someone willing to act as a rhetorical device in the near future. Please.)
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