John Cleese and Eric Idle: Live

John Cleese and Eric Idle are (of course) among the founding members of Monty Python's Flying Circus and currently doing a live tour together. This was clearly too good an opportunity to pass up, so Kathryn and myself made sure to not only attend, but make sure we snapped up good enough seats that we could have one look at a pair of comedy legends that changed our lives. And of course the promo artwork for their tour was done by a friend of a friend of ours, because its a very small world indeed.

 I don't think its possible to overstate the impact these two men had on both of our lives. I remember watching reruns of Monty Python on PBS with my dad as a young 'un, and their style of comedy made a clear impact on both my and Kathryn's personal senses of humor. From the dead parrot sketch to wink-wink nudge-nudge. From the ministry of silly walks to the end song of Life of Brian.

Of course those sketches were all a long time ago and both men are now in their golden years, but are still certainly worth the time to go see if you have the chance. It was also sad to hear that Terry Jones has dementia now and that so many stories involved friends (Graham Chapman, George Harrison etc) that have passed away. Ultimately, the show contained a few more video clips than either of us needed, and the history of Monty Python is so covered that its hard to find new things to say, but just being in the same room with two of our childhood heroes for a couple of hours was a once-in-a-lifetime treat for us both.