Terry Jones

A PYTHON REFLECTS

By TOM SOTER
from VIDEO, 1991

Monty Python is 22 this year – 22 years since Monty Python's Flying Circus changed TV history with its wacked-out, absurdist humor, from five wacked-out, absurdist Britons and one American from Wisconsin. Monty Python's Flying Circus – following Vols. 1-21, though with Python, you never can tell – has
also just hit the racks, bringing to an end the complete release of the complete televisual works (two episodes per tape, except for the last which has three) of the Python troupe. Also out: a re-release of the group's best film, The Life of Brian, and a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl.

"The Life of Brian was a great experience," remarks ex-Python Terry Jones, now living in a suburb outside of London, writing children's books, directing films like Personal Services and Erik the Viking, and feeding olives to his tiny dog. "We had about two weeks together in a house in Barbados, sort of getting out the shape of it, and it really came out right at the end. I liked it."

Not so Monty Python's Meaning of Life, the sextet's last group effort. "It was very difficult getting everybody together to do Meaning of Life. It was a less happy writing experience, I must say. We're just so different, we couldn't get everybody together, whereas in the past we'd sort of meet, discuss things,go off write for a couple of weeks, come back together again, weed out stuff. We'd spend two or three days together, or a week together, then go off and do it again. So it was all sustained. With Meaning of Life, we'd meet, we'd disappear again, we'd maybe meet up again two months later or something. We just couldn't keep everybody together, and it just went on and on and on. Then we went over to Jamaica to get the script together. It was a disaster. And then, it was the first two days, talking and talking and talking, and trying to get a structure. And it was just hopeless, we just couldn't go anywhere. I remember waking up Wednesday morning with this sinking feeling in my stomach I remembered having during exams, and I thought, Jesus Christ, this isn't working. It's all going to fall to pieces."‘