The heyday of Monty Python’s comedy may be over, but we’re living through a golden age of Monty Python members sniping at each other in interviews.
After Eric Idle’s Twitter feud with John Cleese, Cleese’s brief spat with Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam’s battle with the invisible woke mob that somehow keeps derailing his movie projects, now Idle is taking Palin to task for a past comment.
Per The Sun, Idle recently spoke to The Big Issue for their “Letter to My Younger Self” section. At one point, he expressed shock that Palin had ever claimed to be regretful about the end of Monty Python. “Michael said he was sad to see us break up?” Idle questioned. “He was the first to leave! He’s such a hypocrite.”
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“I can’t believe Michael said he was sad,” Idle continued. “He turned down the opportunity to do (Monty Python shows) in America, in Australia, in South Africa. He turned down $30 million!”
Idle is referring to the 2014 Monty Python reunion, and more specifically, Palin’s disinterest in extending the run beyond just 10 shows at London’s O2 Arena.
When asked back in 2014 if the end of the Python was really because of Palin’s wishes, Idle responded, “Pretty much. We were offered America, Australia, Canada, South Africa. And some people who have got more debts were more keen than others!”
Palin, meanwhile, told the BBC that the decision was a collective one. “The general feeling was that we’d rather have the rest of our life doing what we all wanted to do and not spend the years ahead touring Python,” he revealed. “There’s terrific international interest in Python, particularly in America. So I think they’ll be a little bit miffed that we’re not going over there. But they get everything. Too bad. They’ll have to come here.”
In his new interview Idle also, somewhat surprisingly, suggested that the troupe actually called it quits more than five decades ago. “In some ways we split up immediately before The Holy Grail,” Idle said. “John didn’t want to do a fourth series. After that we decided to just stick to films.”
Cleese famously left Monty Python’s Flying Circus after just three seasons, later admitting that he was an “awful purist” about comedy and worried that the show was beginning to repeat itself. He also claimed that two of the more “insecure” members of the group were “very angry” with him for bailing on the show.
While the remaining members produced an abbreviated fourth Flying Circus season in 1974, the departure of Cleese seemed to signal the end of the collective. “1973 is the year which saw the break-up of the Python group,” Michael Palin wrote in his diary at the time.
So although they obviously collaborated again for movies, live shows and ill-advised TV specials, the Pythons did technically break up before making what is arguably their most beloved work — if you don’t count the online squabbling as “work.”
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