Laugh ?.- I nearly started

Rating: 5/10 (27 July 2007)

If you were to cut Mr J.Cleese in half you would find "Oxbridge/BBC" written all the way through,rather like in a stick of Brighton rock.He is just the kind of chap the Oxbridge mafia who run the BBC think should have unlimited air time,hence his seemingly endless TV appearances on chat shows,compilation programmes reruns of the hideously unfunny "Fawlty Towers",discussions on what makes comedy funny,(shurely shome mishtake here - as soon as you start dissecting comedy it becomes distinctly unfunny),Monty Python reunions etc etc.They see his task as the edification of us proles,for he is surely one of "them" and not one of us.To me Mr Cleese has never got over his schoolboy wish to say "Fxxk" in a church.Once he had achieved that at Graham Chapman's memorial service he should have grown up a bit,but,alas,he never has. Mr Chapman was still with us,although already an alcoholic,in 1975 when "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" was released.In the 32 years that have passed since then,the film has acquired a reputation -particularly in the U.S. where Pythonmania seems rampant - that far exceeds its merits. Put succinctly,it is nowhere near as funny as the cast thinks it is and they are nowhere near as clever as they think they are. Much of the humour is "hommaged" from sources as diverse as The Goon Show and,er,...The Goon Show.Much of the rest can be traced back to the Marx Bros,British Music Hall and radio stars and "Hellzapoppin'". That doesn't leave an awful lot of original innovative stuff that many people credit them with for introducing to TV and films. Every evening at the going down of the sun,these Python boys should be giving thanks to Spike Milligan.And Max Wall.And Gillie Potter.And Nat Jackley.And so on. Now on the West End stage as the musical "Spamalot"(Laugh ? - I nearly started)it plays before packed audiences who could no doubt repeat the "Dead Parrot" sketch by heart. Back in 1975 such an event would have beyond even Mr T.Gilliam's rich imagination.