Comedy legend Eric Idle’s career is so much more than just Monty Python. There’s his Tony-winning musical ‘Spamalot’, his Beatles parody series ‘The Rutles’, and of course, the world’s No. 1 funeral song. Eric chats to Cityscape ahead of his Christchurch performance in October.
There’s a legion of Monty Python fans here very eager to see you. Have you been to Christchurch before?
I don’t think I have and I’m very much looking forward to it. Of course I watch it on cricket and I note that you are recovering from the earthquakes. It’s always fun to be on the road, to see all the places you haven’t seen and I like to do that.
What can we expect?
I like to make a show that has a through-line, it isn’t just a series of jokes. I like to have it be about something. And I like to be funny about these things. I like to sing songs so we’ve got songs, we’ve got a bit of philosophy, we’ve got one fart joke – I like to mix it up, keep it fresh for me. There’s stories about people I have known, like George Harrison and Robin Williams, people I have been fortunate enough to know very well in my life. And also just looking back on your life, it’s very nice to be able to go and do that.
It’s good to see that The Rutles get a nod in the programme. A much under-appreciated series.
I agree with you. I love The Rutles and we do quite a nice tribute. I did the second Rutles project called ‘Can’t Buy Me Lunch’. I went around asking people like David Bowie and Salman Rushdie the effect of The Rutles on their lives, as the same irritating interviewer from the TV series, and they said some really interesting and funny things. In a very bizarre way, if you ask people about a fictitious group, they tell you more of the truth about the originals, which I found very fascinating. So I’ve got some of the highlights of that as well as the wonderful music that Neil Innes wrote and the band play. The Rutles I think is the most fun thing I wrote. Before ‘Spamalot’ anyway, the most fun. My favourite joke is the running-away-from-camera gag. I remember writing that and it made me laugh. Very rarely when you are writing comedy do you make yourself laugh. I come forward, I’m talking to camera, it pulls back gently but the camera gets faster and faster and I end up running after it. I remember when I was writing it thinking that’s really funny.
Is it getting harder to look on the bright side?
I don’t think so and I’ll tell you why not. I was born in World War 2 and so ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ is actually rather like a World War song, you know, there’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, the grey skies will clear up one day – it’s that nostalgic encouragement which we grew up with, which were our fathers’ songs. And I think that is the place that it occupies. I do think it is important to remind people that we’re not on the whole being bombed whereas my generation were being bombed and we had to wear mickey mouse gas masks and hide in the ground. There are worse things going on than loudmouthed people being stupid, there is war and we must fight that, that’s what we have to fight against.
Two contrasts from recent interviews – Dylan Moran not at all interested in talking about ‘Black Books’ whereas David Walliams very happy to chat about ‘Little Britain’. For you then, Monty Python – burden or blessing?
I love ‘Black Books’, by the way. But the point is in Dylan’s case that you feel you’ve moved on. I follow his career. Whenever he comes to LA I go and see him. He’s the most hysterical standup comedian and he says some of the most honest things, which is the hallmark of a good comedian. He’ll say something really honest about relationships or marriage and it makes you laugh and yet it rings true. And there could be a point where people got fed up with talking about Monty Python, I mean it’s 40 years ago. But because it isn’t all by me – there's five writers – there’s bits of Monty Python I like just as much as any other fan because I didn’t write it. We get credit for all of it but one didn’t create all of it. We were part of a team that was bold enough to try and be a little bit different and do what pleased us.
You’re a hero and inspiration to many comedians, who is your comedic hero?
Oh, that’s easy to answer. I was about 16 or 17 and I went to see a show in London at the West End, ‘Beyond the Fringe’, and I saw Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett and they were so funny. I couldn’t afford a seat so we had standing and we were just rolling all around the walls it made me laugh so much. They just ripped everything that you were supposed to take seriously – the Prime Minister, monarchy, everything – and that was so liberating. Laughter can be very liberating. And I just went back, I bought the album and from then on I just wanted to do comedy because I thought it was a way of telling the truth and getting big laughs. And I like that. Peter was probably the funniest man in the world. I remember Billy Connolly saying that. Billy Connolly was close to being the funniest man in the world. Robin Williams was certainly the funniest man in the world for the longest time. He would just riff unbelievably on things, they’d just keep growing out of his mind, he was like an Einstein. There are some wonderful people who are very funny in the business of comedy. I like the people who do it and I like them making me laugh.
What’s next?
I have a book coming out, it’s called ‘The Spamalot Diaries’. Quite by chance I was downsizing last year and I found this diary that I had forgotten I kept during the rehearsal period and the creation and making of ‘Spamalot’. And it was rather fascinating because when you are keeping a diary every two or three days, you don’t know that it is going to be successful, you have no idea. And you’ve got anxieties and fights and arguments – it tells a very nice story of the creation of a show that actually went on to win the Tony for best musical of the year. Which totally blew my mind. I had no idea – I thought we would be funny but I had no idea we would be on Broadway and win the best musical of the year. Who knew that!
‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ is famously requested for funerals – have you ever performed it live at a funeral?
No but it moves me very much that people ask for that at their funerals. Also, on ‘Match of the Day’ last week, the Liverpool fans started to sing it to the Manchester United fans and I found it very funny, I love that, I mean what more could you ask for?
You become part of the language?
And I think there are so many of those Python slogans that you hear all the time, I find even myself doing it. I don’t quite know what that is but I think it’s fun and I like it.
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live!,
Isaac Theatre Royal,
Mon 28 Oct,
ericidle.com