By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Cineplex Front Row Center Events
Encore Broadcast: July 31
July 20th’s world-wide simulcast of Monty Python Live (Mostly) will no doubt get a video release sooner than later. With the show recorded and already broadcasted on television in the European Union, pumping out a video product will be easy.
That way, fans can look back at nearly 45 years of this comedy team’s cacophony of the fun and absurd. Technically, the years they were active amounted to 18. The stage show at London’s O2 arena featured the best of this comedy group’s skits from the television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus with more pomp, romp and craziness niched in, and for some folks hoping for a few surprises, the only shame is that no new material was offered.
At least a few of the skits are updated for the times. The Cheese Shop sketch gets an amusing postscript note at the tail end of The Dead Parrot sketch, and that at least shows some fun changes are in store. But for the other skit, either they are given a huge production in the style of Broadway in a way that only Eric Idle can appreciate or they are taken straight out of the tele from long ago.
Continue reading “Looking Back (and Forward) to the Life & Times of Monty Python”