| So here’s the good news: Monty Python’s Eric Idle is coming to Calgary to play the Jubilee Auditorium on November 29 with his Greedy Ba$tard Tour. Not only that, he’s happy to do interviews to promote it.
The bad news? He’s so happy to do interviews that he’s doing scores of them throughout the four-month tour – a wide-ranging North American jaunt that kicked off in the eastern U.S. in September. And he likes to do his phone chats in clusters, giving every interviewer a mere 15 minutes each.
Fifteen freakin’ minutes! That may be long enough to interview some flash-in-the-pan celebrity, but this guy really is, pun intended, an idol. Monty Python is, no argument, the greatest sketch comedy troupe ever (or, as Idle himself said of the Rutles, "a legend to last a lunchtime"). The Pythons’ funny bits have become a part of England’s cultural heritage, with Idle contributing such classics to the canon as the "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" skit and that cheery little crucifixion ditty, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." And it was Idle who created the prototype rock mockumentary with The Rutles, that wildly inspired Beatles spoof released half a decade before This is Spinal Tap. In 15 minutes, how do you even scratch the surface?
Clearly a strategy is needed. Scrap all the obvious questions and ask him, instead, about some comparatively lesser-known facts – his close friendship with the late George Harrison, for example, or why John Cleese decided to leave the Pythons during their 1973 Canadian tour. I have a list drawn up when, the day of the interview, I check in on Idle’s daily tour diary, which he’s been faithfully posting on the Python website, pythonline.com, to see how the previous day has gone – only to find him railing against idiot interviewers who ask stupid questions.
OK, fuck it. Forget the 20 questions – he’s calling me, let him talk about whatever he likes.
The phone rings exactly at the appointed time and there’s that familiar North of England voice, on the line from a Vermont hotel room, sounding polite but brisk. "This is Fast Forward magazine? Well, let’s make this a fast-forward interview. You’d better dive right in and ask me what you want to know."
Never mind me, Eric, I say. What do you want to talk about?
"Well, that’s a Zen question," he replies with a laugh of surprise. When he finds out I’ve been reading his diary, he apologizes, explaining he’s not really that pissed off. "It’s nice to have conversations with people, it’s just hard to be fresh about things that are constantly being asked. The boring questions are all answered in the big book that’s come out," he says, alluding to The Pythons Autobiography, a new coffee-table tome featuring reminiscences by the troupe’s five surviving members. (Graham Chapman died in 1989.)
"But I don’t mind being asked why I’m on tour," Idle says, "because I still haven’t totally sorted out in my mind why I am. Partly it’s the adventure and joy of performing to people live. Part of it’s because I’m getting up there (he’s 60 now) and I don’t think I’ll be doing this in three or four years. The other thing is, I’ve never done it. It’s great to be on a bus and drive over the planet, see all the many different places, and yet stop and, at night, be able to do silly Monty Python sketches."
The Greedy Ba$tard show features Idle and a trio of stand-in Pythons performing a string of Python gems, from the bragging Yorkshiremen to the Aussie philosophy department to the "Lumberjack Song." There’s also material from Idle’s recent Rutland Isles CD, classic skits by fellow British comedy legends like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and even a splash or two of autobiography.
Of course, when he says he hasn’t toured like this, he’s referring to a solo excursion. In the 1970s Monty Python hit the road like a rock band. "We were the first (comedians) to do that," he says. "When we first toured England, we went up one side (of the country) and Bowie was going down the other. And it was rock ’n’ roll promoters who put us on in Canada."
The group’s 1973 visit here, when the Python TV series was in its penultimate season, proved the breaking point for Cleese. "I don’t think Canada is to blame," jokes Idle. "John didn’t like the adulation. He didn’t like people cheering and shouting and going along with the sketches. None of that is John – it annoyed him."
So, somewhere in the airspace between Edmonton and Vancouver, Cleese threw in the towel. "I remember Graham coming up and saying we should all continue, and I said ‘Why don’t we do six (more episodes) and see how that goes?’ John stopped at Vancouver and got off the tour and we were all flown down to L.A., where we had a great time. We were given a rock ’n’ roll reception, stayed in the Hyatt hotel. It was all riotous, running around with Led Zeppelin on motorbikes, and John missed all the fun."
Their BBC series, which had begun in 1969, lasted one more season. "It wasn’t quite the same without John," says Idle. "It missed this tension that he and Terry (Jones) had, which kept it kind of intense and on-the-spot. So, because of that, we segued into movies – and John came along for those."
It was at a 1975 Hollywood screening of their deliriously funny first feature, the now-immortal Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that Idle met former Beatle Harrison. The two bonded instantly. "We became firm friends at that second," he recalls. "There was no question that we were going to go off and talk and drive around. We went into a recording studio of his and he introduced me to Joni Mitchell. We just went on all night, talking and laughing. It was like catching up with someone you’d known already.
"The George I knew was the post-Beatle, the grown-up man who’d suffered and matured and decided what he was going to be," he adds warmly. "I had the benefit of his life after the Beatles, which was very philosophical and involved spending a lot of time in gardens and on foreign beaches."
Harrison was a huge Python fan who shared the troupe’s sense of humour and even bankrolled its 1979 religious satire, Life of Brian, when other producers were scared to touch it. He also co-wrote silly songs with Idle and played a cameo role in The Rutles. "George was funny from the first and to the end," says Idle, who was able to show him the long-awaited sequel to The Rutles, Can’t Buy Me Lunch, shortly before Harrison died of cancer in 2001.
The film, boasting cameos by the likes of Tom Hanks, Gary Shandling and Salman Rushdie, is owned by Warner Brothers and remains unreleased, which is a source of frustration for Idle. "We did drag it out to a screening recently in L.A. People came and laughed. So at least I know it doesn’t sit in the vault because it’s not funny – it’s because they haven’t sold it to anybody."
More heartening is the enthusiasm over another Idle project, a Broadway musical of Holy Grail called Spamalot. "I’ve been on it for two-and-a-half years and it’s going ahead," says Idle. "The Pythons want it to be done and Mike Nichols wants to direct it."
He expects plenty of Python involvement in the show. "I know the two directors, the two Terrys (Jones and Gilliam), will definitely want to be around, and I’m sure John will want to have a look. That’s good about Python – they always want to be involved (in a project), so that it stays pure to our view and conception of things."
The 15 minutes are ticking to a close, an assistant has brought Idle a sushi dinner and there’s just time to gather a little miscellaneous data. Idle’s married (second time) to model Tania Kosevich, has a 13-year-old daughter, Lily, and has been living in L.A. for 10 years now. He says he no longer resides in England, but still spends time in Provence, where he’s owned a house since 1971. Check out the anecdote in his tour diary about his getting to lead the Tour de France bicycle race through Paris with Robin Williams and Michael J. Fox.
The diary also reveals his humorous envy of the far-flung peregrinations of fellow Python-turned-travel writer Michael Palin. It turns out Palin has just sent Idle a postcard from his latest port of call.
"He’s in Amritsar, I’m in Burlington, Vermont," says Idle with a sigh. "But," he adds brightly, "he can’t get sushi." |
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