Lost Python Sketches Will See The Light

Beli writes: "According to this story over at BBC, 3 lost Monty Python sketches written by the late Graham Chapman have been found and are to be played this year at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Now if only John Cleese, Eric Idle and Co. would perform them. Apparently a comedy group called Sketch Club will have such honor."

Comments

Yuck

[HiQ]

Being a great Monty Python fan, and not knowing the comedy group 'Sketch Club', I am very much afraid that it will be something like Backstreet Boys singing a few newly found Beatles songs. It can never be as good as the Python boys doing Python, however hard they will try.

Re:Yuck

[rde]

Relax. I say this for several reasons:

The Fringe is hardly the sort of festival that would accommodate the comedic equivalent of the Backstreet Boys. It's more of a Sex Pistols sort of event (but without the spitting).

Of course it won't be the same as the origninal Python lads. I doubt that the Sketch Club themselves would make that claim. But let's face it: they Python sketches themselves, though impeccably written (4th series excepted), where often somewhat haphazard in their execution. I for one would love to see these new sketches performed by people who aren't - I hope they'll pardon the phrase - a bunch of old farts, however much an institution they are.

Important Work?

[kvn299]

My impression is that the Pythons wrote many sketches that never saw the light of day. In a Vanity Fair interview several years ago, they said that while producing the show, many sketches were presented but weren't accepted, often because they weren't funny. Does this mean that those discarded skits should rate alongside the Python's best work? The article is a little vague about when these were written.

It's nice that Chapman's work is still considered important enough for this kind of treatment, but in the end, what we have is the work done by the group. And that work is why we love Monty Python so much. Together they were so much more than the sum of their parts, and I think these skits should be viewed in that light.

That said, I can't wait to see the Gay Budgie skit!

Graham Chapman: godlike genius

[Cally]

Graham Chapman was - IS - a complete hero of mine. Not only did he write much of the Python material (in collaboration with Eric Idle and John Cleese), he starred in The Life of Brian and the Holy Grail films whilst suffereing from a chronic alcohol problem (multiple bottles of gin a day.) He was also one of the first celebrities to come out as gay, and helped found Gay News when sexual relationships between two consenting adults was still illegal in this country.

I strongly recommend his wonderful "A Liar's Autobiography" for a painfully candid (and very funny) story of his life.

Reminds me of a "How to write unmaint.. code"

[ManxStef]

Cut-and-pasted from How To Write Unmaintainable Code (the "Naming" section):

Obscure film references: Use constant names like LancelotsFavouriteColour instead of blue and assign it hex value of $0204FB. The color looks identical to pure blue on the screen, and a maintenance programmer would have to work out 0204FB (or use some graphic tool) to know what it looks like. Only someone intimately familiar with Monty Python and the Holy Grail would know that Lancelot's favorite color was blue. If a maintenance programmer can't quote entire Monty Python movies from memory, he or she has no business being a programmer.

Complaint

[tybalt44]

Dear Sir,

I must protest in the strongest possible terms the obviously pedantic turn that this thread has taken. I have served in the Navy for seventy-nine years, and have never seen a trace of cannibalism on Slashdot until this post. Why must the average British Linux user be subjected to this filth and depredation!?

Yours etc.,

Rear-Admiral Arthur Mellish Winstanley (Mrs.)

Re:Complaint

[VikingBerserker]

Dear Rear-Admiral Arthur Mellish Winstanley (Mrs.),

As a Slashdot editor I abhor the implication that the website is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we now have the problem relatively under control, and that it is ThinkGeek who now suffer the largest casualties in this area. And where do you think they get their caffeine from? Arabs?

Yours etc.

Cmdr. Taco in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic

If you need to refresh your Python knowledge ...

[belbo]

Complete text version of all Monty Python sketches.

belbo