The five remaining members of comedy legends Monty Python
are all in their seventies. Reuniting at this point kind of stinks of desperation, of one last attempt to squeeze a little money out of their legacy (those are Terry Gilliam’s words, not mine). But you wouldn’t get that idea from their supposedly final
show, performed in London on Sunday and streamed in theaters around the world.
The production, the last of ten shows at London’s O2 Arena,
is basically a greatest hits package of the troupe’s sketches. Classics like
the Dead Parrot, the Argument Clinic, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Lumberjack song are of
course included, along with a few great bits one might not expect (the Exploding
Penguin, anyone?). Peppered throughout are musical numbers, celebrity cameos
(one in particular surprising and very funny), and bumpers containing Gilliam’s animations
and old filmed segments.
As for the “new” stuff the promotional materials promised? Well,
it’s mainly just extensions and slightly different adaptations of material we’ve seen before,
mostly in the form of large, elaborate, extremely dirty musical numbers. With
these, there are some hits (“Every Sperm is Sacred” gets taken to a hilariously
vulgar extreme, and a classy ballet routine devolves in a way too funny spoil)
and…well, “miss” might be too hard a word, but they're a little unnecessarily inflated. All’s forgivable, however, as they mostly act as transitions between
sketches, rather than stealing the spotlight.
The show works best when things are kept small, as the Pythons
plow through the old favorites. It’s no mere retread with them tiredly going
through the motions, either; the old masters are as funny and capable as ever,
and visibly having a grand old time. It’s also quite amusing seeing them muff a
line or break out laughing (it is live, after all), or ad lib away from the scripts fans know by heart. Admittedly, it seems like something’s missing without the
late Graham Chapman (not that the other five don’t do a good job filling his
shoes, but a few roles he played are hard to imagine anyone else filling),
though the still-living Pythons pay respects to their fallen friend at several points.
This show is by no means essential viewing, as all of it’s
been done. And it probably won’t appeal to anyone other than the fans. For those
people, though, this final sendoff (for the time being) makes for a fun few
hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment