page_title: Terry Jones
section_title: Before Python and early Python
hierarchical_section_title: Terry Jones / Career history / Before Python and early Python
caption_attribution_description: Photo 02-07-14 12 47 22
context_page_description: Terence Graham Parry Jones was a Welsh actor, writer, comedian, screenwriter, film director and historian. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy team.
  After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and writing partner Michael Palin wrote and performed for several high-profile British comedy programmes, including Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Frost Report, before creating Monty Python's Flying Circus with Cambridge graduates Eric Idle, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and the American animator/filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Jones was largely responsible for the programme's innovative, surreal structure, in which sketches flowed from one to the next without the use of punchlines. He made his directorial debut with the team's film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which he co-directed with Gilliam, and also directed the subsequent Python films Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.
  Jones co-created and co-wrote with Palin the anthology series Ripping Yarns. He also wrote an early draft of Jim Henson's 1986 film Labyrinth, though little of his work remained in the final cut.
context_section_description: Jones appeared in Twice a Fortnight with Michael Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, as well as the television series The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969). He appeared in Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–69) with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason. He wrote for The Frost Report and several other David Frost programmes on British television. Of Jones' contributions as a performer to Monty Python's Flying Circus, his depictions of middle-aged women (or "ratbag old women" as termed by the BBC, also known as "pepper-pots" or "grannies from hell") are among the most memorable.
caption: Jones performing “The Spanish Inquisition” sketch in 2014. He plays Cardinal Biggles (who resembles his namesake Biggles in wearing a leather aviator's helmet and goggles). The sketch was first broadcast 22 September 1970
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