Monty Python's failing circus

The remaining members of Monty Python reunited to put on a show in London's massive O2 Center, with live broadcasts to theaters around the world. One of those was in Belfast and David and I went last night, looking for a good laugh. We looked everywhere and we just couldn't find any.

It was a pretty sad effort. The writing was done by Eric Idle, who apparently has aged into dirty old man territory. There were a lot of song and dance numbers involving scantily clad women (we're talking thongs, here) and songs about body parts using terminology I've never heard before--apparently I'm hanging out with the wrong people.

Terry Jones looked uncomfortable most of the time and John Cleese often looked befuddled and struggled with his lines. Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam supplied the energy, while you got the impression Michael Palin wandered onto the wrong set. They recreated a few old skits but most of it was flashy dance numbers with a few dozen men and women. When I'm in a forlorn production, I always find myself thinking "At least this has created jobs for a lot of theater workers"--dancers, musicians, set builders, etc.

After parting with 15 pounds each, we decided the whole thing was a craven cash-in effort. Spamalot was very entertaining but it benefited from the narrative structure of Holy Grail and better writing. This was a mish mash of new songs and old skits and the comedic genius we were hoping for was a no show. The funniest part was showing the old clip of the philosophers playing soccer. But we could have seen that on a DVD.