Latest news with #Pythons
Telegraph
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Comedy About Spies: This level of stupidity takes real talent
Much as we can say we hanker after chewy state of the nation dramas, sometimes froth can be no less an imperative. Mischief Theatre have taken shrewd stock of the state of the nation and decided we need cheering up. The troupe – probably the most successful UK comedy outfit since the Pythons – struck gold with their send-up of bumbling am-dram The Play That Goes Wrong (2012), which shows no sign of relinquishing its perch at the Duchess (and has enjoyed multiple international iterations). Far from resting on their laurels, the talented gaggle have capitalised on their calling-card hit to the formulaic hilt. There have been glorious '…Goes Wrong' sequels (Peter Pan, Magic, A Christmas Carol). Their latest West End venture follows more in the footsteps of the screwball The Comedy About a Bank Robbery (2016); it's a caper not a knowing car-crash. I sheepishly confessed in my review of the latter show at the Criterion that I had been the odd one out about The Play That Goes Wrong, even goadingly citing it as my worst play experience of 2014. In my defence, I got divorced that year and have (I hope) since recovered my sense of humour. But it's worth observing that if you don't have a penchant for running gags flogged to death, rampant mugging, cheap sight gags and corny word-play then you may not be the ideal audience here. That said, even the most averse spectator will likely marvel at the gag-a-line detail, comic timing and sheer physical bravura of this company of fools, led by Henry Lewis and Henry Shields (co-writers too), directed by Matt DiCarlo. Yes, this is a show – rewinding to the 1960s and every stereotype going about Cold War spying – with next to nothing to tell us. But in that abstention from commentary, and delight in daftness, something is subliminally communicated about the persistence of old-fashioned British comedy; the show carries the flag, quite nobly, for innocent japes. Situated somewhere between Operation Mincemeat (though based on baloney, not actuality) and Fawlty Towers, the tirelessly farcical evening begins with MI6's headquarters being blown to smithereens following a blissfully idiotic sequence of door-slamming misunderstanding built around the agents' alphabetised code-names. The action switches to a hotel lobby then a cross-section of four bedrooms, with two Russians and two US operatives converging in search of a turncoat British agent. In the midst of this invitation to bungle – involving covert bugged radios, overt communication failures and frantic excuses – stand the sweetly hapless figure of Shields's Bernard Wright, a baker, vainly trying to propose to his girlfriend (Adele James's Rosemary) and Lewis's Douglas Woodbead, a loudly roaring failed actor, preparing to audition for James Bond. No less cherishable are Charlie Russell and Chris Leask as the only too conspicuous Russkies, while Dave Hearn and Nancy Zamit impress as the clueless (and, ludicrously, related) Yanks. In a knowingly wearying second half, the plot thickens with spiralling double-crossing guaranteed to have everyone, not just the tourists, struggling to keep up. I'd say it takes near genius to fashion something this incorrigibly goofy.
Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) review — moments of brilliance
The Pythons peaked as film-makers in 1979 with Life of Brian, a brief flowering of narrative storytelling for a troupe defined by sketch comedy. This earlier Arthurian spoof is somewhere in between. There is ostensible dramatic coherence in the quest for the Grail by Graham Chapman's long-suffering King of the Britons. 'Ooooh king, very nice,' says a wonderfully grotty Michael Palin. 'How did you get that? By exploiting the workers!' But these are otherwise loosely related set pieces, held together by Terry Gilliam's animations and frequently punctuated by moments of brilliance. The Knights Who Say 'Ni!' remains ridiculously funny. The Trojan Rabbit is a flawless sight gag. The irritable God (Chapman), depicted with the cartoon head of WG Grace, is an early preview of
Irish Examiner
08-05-2025
- General
- Irish Examiner
Bone analysis proves gladiators fought lions in Britain
Wild beast 'hunts' were a 'feature attraction' at Rome's Flavian Amphitheatre, the Colosseum: — Mosaics and pottery decorations depict fights between gladiators and animals. — Convicted prisoners suffered damnatio ad bestias. That the human body, a 'temple of the Holy Spirit', should be devoured by brute beasts was particularly abominable to Christians. "What have the Romans ever done for us," one of the Pythons asked, "apart from providing sanitation, medicine, wine, public order, and roads?" Amphitheatres might have been added to the list; large towns, even in faraway Roman Britain, had arenas, in which spectacles of mindless cruelty were staged for public entertainment. British slaves and social outcasts may have taken the Sacramentum Gladiatorem oath. Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus Aurelius, the exiled Prince of Rome in Gladiator II The Barbary lion roamed deserts and mountains from Morocco to Egypt. Local trappers knew its haunts and watering holes. Pits were dug into which the hapless animals were lured. Soldiers on horseback hounded them into concealed nets. Water laced with alcohol may have been used to stupefy the unfortunate creatures. Captured animals were sent to 'entertainment' arenas around the Mediterranean. Transporting big cats on ships and in horse-drawn wagons must have been a logistical nightmare. Lesion on the right ilium of 6DT19 Rome invaded England in 402AD. Lions had been hunted for centuries by then. Thousands had been slaughtered during the reign of Julius Caesar alone and their numbers had probably become depleted. So, were these now rare animals sent as far as England, more than 1,000 kilometres away at the northern extremity of the Empire? Professor Tim Thompson of Maynooth University is the lead author of a paper which presents the first physical evidence that they were. Marble relief with lion and gladiator. Picture: © The Trustees of the British Museum Burials were not permitted in Roman towns; cemeteries had to be located outside the walls. York, a major Roman settlement, had frequent gladiatorial shows, resulting in many deaths. Archaeologists unearthed 80 skeletons at Driffield Terrace, southwest of the city. Almost all were of young well-built males; gladiators. Each had been beheaded which was the custom in gladiator burials. The victims had lived around 1,800 years ago. Forensic examination revealed the bite marks of a large carnivore on the pelvic bones of one skeleton. Comparing the marks to those found on carcasses eaten by animals in zoos, showed that they had been made by a large cat, probably a lion. The wounds had not healed so they must have caused the victim's death. Lesions on the left iliac spine of 6DT19 [images from That a great civilisation, a cornerstone of western culture, promoted such revolting spectacles is hard to comprehend. Also, the impact on North African big cats must have been considerable. But the Barbary lion survived the Roman onslaught. It did not become extinct until well after the invention of firearms. One was photographed in 1924 and the last wild lion was shot in Morocco in 1942. These cats were once kept in the moat of the Tower of London and some still live in captivity today. I remember seeing a pair in Belfast Zoo. Among the largest of African lions, the Barbary is unusual in that, like the Asiatic sub-species, it doesn't form prides. Prey became so scarce in the Atlas Mountains, where it roamed, that it opted to live in solitary pairs.
Wall Street Journal
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Coconuts Still Clopping, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail' Turns 50
After a week of shooting 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' in 1974 the results were clear. Graham Chapman, who starred as King Arthur because nobody else wanted to play the straight man, 'said what a complete disaster we were making,' co-director Terry Gilliam later recalled for David Morgan's book 'Monty Python Speaks: The Complete Oral History.' Neither Mr. Gilliam nor the other director, Terry Jones, had any experience in making a movie, the main camera broke on the first day of shooting, the budget was laughable (roughly half a million dollars), and Jones and Mr. Gilliam kept contradicting each other's orders to the crew. 'What egomaniacs, megalomaniacs, useless pieces of s— we were,' was Chapman's assessment, according to Mr. Gilliam. But like the purportedly dead peasant in the movie ('I'm getting better'), the production wasn't quite so dead as all that. When the six Pythons began showing footage at the Stirling, Scotland, hotel where everyone stayed for the shoot, locals (many of whom served as extras) laughed heartily. And thanks to the debut of the 1969-74 BBC series 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' on American public television in the fall of 1974, fans were primed by the time the movie was released in the U.S. in April 1975, with a marketing strategy that included having a man clop together coconut halves on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Theaters are celebrating the 50th anniversary with screenings on May 4 and 7.
