Monty Python Live (Mostly)

It was some time in the late 90s. An ex-boss who had been born and raised in Britain and had returned to India mentioned something about Monty Python in a conversation. Now, I had no idea who Monty Python was and thought it was something to do with The Full Monty - a movie I had watched on TV not long earlier. Internet was a recent distraction back then and keen to exploit everything that search engines had to offer, I yahooed Monty Python and was promptly directed to a website which offered their scripts to download for free. And thus began hours of reading and lol-ing (another recently discovered term back then) Monty Python scripts. When I moved countries to Britain some years later, one of the first things I did was to borrow a DVD of Monty Python shows and watch their work and marvel at their collective brilliance. Earlier this year, when I read that the Pythons were going to come back together for a final few shows, I made a mental note of it and then promptly forgot about it - well, actually, the thought process went like this - 'Oh great, the Pythons are having a reunion, may be I should buy a ticket, but hang on, watching a live show would mean having to make all the arrangements and diaries and calendars needing to be checked and cleared of all prior engagements, can I really be bothered, even for the Pythons? No, not really'. So, I read the lukewarm reviews to their  live shows which incidentally, sold out within minutes and wished I had at least tried. Nonetheless, I had read that these live shows were going to be screened across theatres nationally and I decided not to miss it. And that's precisely what I did over the weekend. Watch, laugh, howl and cry at the sheer brainwackery of the remaining Monty Pythons (Graham Chapman having passed away - or having "ceased to be, bereft of life, resting in peace, kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky." as the Pythons would put it). There was little new material but then, I suspect the audience didn't come for that. We came to watch the Four Yorkshiremen reminisce the good old days and to the bemoan a dead parrot. And we got our money's worth. After more than 40 years, The Monty Python still prevail - their brilliance intact, their irreverence acute, their humour superior, their middle finger at all things conventional forever raised.