Documenting Hilarity: 'Monty Python: Almost the Truth — The Lawyer's Cut'

| Print Post This | Like (1) | Comments (0)

THE GREAT THING about the Monty Python sketches and films — besides how funny they still are, 40 years later — is how much of an inside joke they've become. Ask a group of people about the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow — or start to sing about cross-dressing lumberjacks — and you'll be met with either whooping enthusiasm or blank stares. It's comedy that's almost as polarizing as the "Three Stooges": there's a very distinct and passionate cult of Python, and then there's everybody else.

"Almost the Truth — The Lawyer's Cut" (Eagle Rock) is a six-hour documentary that aired earlier this month on IFC and is out now on DVD. It includes recent interviews from the five surviving members of the group (John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin) as well as archival interviews with the sixth founder, Graham Chapman, who died in 1989.

Still, "Almost the Truth" isn't really a great place for a Python neophyte; better starting points include the group's work itself, from the complete "Flying Circus" DVDs to its films ("Monty Python and the Holy Grail" chief among them).

But for anyone who knows just how many spams are in the baked beans (that would be nine: "spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam"), "Almost the Truth" is a fantastic way to revisit the backstory behind the sketches and films — everything from the response they received from early audiences to getting money from Led Zeppelin. And, of course, there are copious interviews with other comedians and musicians about how important the troupe was to them.

The set includes a few sketches reproduced in their entirety, such as the parrot sketch and the Spanish Inquisition. (It's also worth mentioning how ridiculously spindly John Cleese's legs are in the "Ministry of Silly Walks.")

But those are old hat; the real attraction is the tenderness and loyalty with which the original Pythons remember details of their experiences and camaraderie, four decades later. The only tough part is seeing how much they've aged in those years; it's much better to remember them as if they were frozen in time in the '60s and '70s.

Get the comfy chair, indeed.

Written by Express contributor Catherine Lewis
Photos courtesy Kayos Productions