Monty Python

IT'S a dark and crowded theater in New York. The curtain has only been up five minutes, and Steve Wynn, the billionaire owner of the Wynn Las Vegas hotel, leans in, grips my knee and whispers in my ear: "Eric," he says, "this will be great in Las Vegas. " "Yes," I say, "it will. " Then I realize, slightly disappointedly, he means "Spamalot. " My future as a billionaire's date is still up for grabs. "Can I give you a ride home?" he asks nicely. I'm thinking 6th Avenue, but he means L.A. Well, OK. He flies us home in a plane bigger than my boarding school.

The clumsy charm of Jeffry Mitchell's ceramic sculptures at Ambach & Rice acts as a sort of friendly greeting. After a bit of time in the work's company, more complicated, more interesting traits emerge, mainly an equal-opportunity attitude of gentle irreverence. The warm brown glaze with whispers of green that sheathes all of the work reinforces its staid, decorative cover, but beneath the surface, Mitchell is reckoning with -- and quietly subverting -- traditional representations relating to gender and Christianity.

There are two kinds of extremes at play in the brutal, medieval action drama "Ironclad": sword-fighting gore of the splitting-a-human-in-half kind, and Paul Giamatti's snarly outrage as bloodthirsty 13th century English ruler King John. Huffing and puffing between scenes of grueling warfare is a muscular if cheesy tale of resistance heroism, made for teenage boys interested in "300"-style violence and chest-heaving martyrdom on a more rough-and-tumble scale. Director Jonathan English, working from a blunt script by himself, Erick Kastel and Stephen McDool, focuses on a band of rebel knights led by James Purefoy's stoic warrior and assembled by Baron Albany (Brian Cox)

It's not often noted in the history books, but Queen Victoria simply couldn't stand pirates. In fact, the words "I Hate Pirates" are prominently carved on the royal crest. You could look it up. Well, actually, you can't, because the wacky folks at Aardman Animations made it up as a key plot point of their delightful"The Pirates! Band of Misfits,"a clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience. Based on a novel by Gideon Defoe, who also wrote the screenplay, "Pirates" follows the exploits, such as they are, of Pirate Captain (wonderfully voiced by Hugh Grant)

Monty Python's Eric Idle and John Du Prez, who created the hit musical comedy "Spamalot," based on the 1975 film, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," have mined the comedy troupe's film canon for a new musical venture. "Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)," an oratorio inspired by "Monty Python's Life of Brian," will have its world premiere in Canada this summer as part of Luminato, Toronto's Festival of Arts and Creativity.

Graham Chapman, a founding member of the zany and irreverent Monty Python's Flying Circus, died Wednesday in Britain of cancer, a spokeswoman for the group announced in New York. He was 48. The tall, slender Chapman who in 1981 wrote "A Liar's Autobiography" about his years with the British nonsense comedic group that was credited with helping reshape the face of television and films in the 1960s and '70s, died in a hospital, said Nancy Lewis, who represents Monty Python.

For comedy buffs, HBO reunites the outrageous Monty Python troupe, "Mystery Science Theater" goes to the Oscars and Fox previews its new sitcom starring Damon Wayans. Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo don their penguin suits to offer their zany opinions of this year's Oscar contenders on "Mystery Science Theater 3000's Academy of Robots' Choice Awards Special," today at 4:30 p.m. on the Sci-Fi Channel. HBO presents the "U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Tribute to Monty Python," Saturday at 11 p.

"You might find that you need to loosen up and stop being such a lamentable crab. In fact, you might be in real need of therapy. Don't be too proud to turn to your computer. It's there. It's listening. It's ready to help." The wisecracker who wrote that in the latest Monty Python CD-ROM manual was on to something. Though computers have often brought out the worst in us, there are times when we should throw our troubles to the wind and laugh.

Argument clinics. Twits. The Ministry of Silly Walks. Baby carriages that eat people. Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! . . . What do they all add up to? Monty Python, of course. The TV series that started the whole Python phenomenon, coincidentally named "Monty Python's Flying Circus," is finally making it to videocassette.

LISBON -- Terry Jones giggles as he describes his latest project: Vacuum cleaners, dryers and parking meters singing opera on stage. The Monty Python alumnus and an all-Portuguese cast are rehearsing for the Jan. 12 world premiere in Lisbon of "Evil Machines." Jones co-wrote the libretto and is directing. To make the author's vision real, the singers climb into elaborate costumes, including one that creates a 15-foot-tall vacuum cleaner.

He may be the world's first French-speaking more-or-less heterosexual transvestite marathon runner. Wednesday night, Eddie Izzard will add yet another breakthrough to his resume: He will become -- with "Eddie Izzard: Stripped to the Bowl" -- the first comedian to headline the storied Hollywood Bowl. "I think I'm the first stand-up to do a solo show there," Izzard says, by phone, with some pride. "I'm not just gonna leave this to the rock 'n' roll guys. It's time for the comedians -- it's time for us to take over.

There are two kinds of extremes at play in the brutal, medieval action drama "Ironclad": sword-fighting gore of the splitting-a-human-in-half kind, and Paul Giamatti's snarly outrage as bloodthirsty 13th century English ruler King John. Huffing and puffing between scenes of grueling warfare is a muscular if cheesy tale of resistance heroism, made for teenage boys interested in "300"-style violence and chest-heaving martyrdom on a more rough-and-tumble scale. Director Jonathan English, working from a blunt script by himself, Erick Kastel and Stephen McDool, focuses on a band of rebel knights led by James Purefoy's stoic warrior and assembled by Baron Albany (Brian Cox)

In the historic launch of its Dragon space capsule Wednesday, Hawthorne-based rocket venture SpaceX didn't carry astronauts or cargo into orbit. But it did transport a wheel of LeBrouere cheese. The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., revealed Thursday that it lifted a secret payload into low Earth orbit aboard its cone-shaped Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX said the choice was a nod to the British comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus and its famous Cheese Shop skit.

Reporting from The Wagah Crossing, India-Pakistan Border -- As one heads across the border from India into Pakistan at the Wagah crossing, the only thing that seems to concern the customs officer in the (essentially dry) Islamic Republic of Pakistan is whether you're bringing in booze. Heading back the other way after two weeks covering political infighting and Taliban attacks, the first thing you hear from an industrious Indian hawker is "You want to buy beer?" Welcome to Wagah, the busiest of the two land crossings linking these ever-suspicious neighbors -- in other words, not very busy.

In 1969, five young British comedians and one young American animator came together to make a television show. Without much of an idea of what they were going to do, they were given a series by the BBC to do it in, and after hunting around for a name -- "Owl-Stretching Time" and "A Horse, a Spoon, and a Basin" having been bruited and vetoed -- they settled on "Monty Python's Flying Circus." The 40th anniversary of this event is being marked by an excellent six-hour documentary series, "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)

An English newspaper once described a soccer star as having "developed splendidly and then aged as well as could be hoped for." That might sum up another U.K. icon, Monty Python. Because while it's been 25 years since the seminal six-man English comedy troupe has produced any new material, its thoughtful silliness still resonates. Now the group is again among us, cheerfully exploiting its upcoming 40th anniversary with a Python-palooza of events on tap: a new play in Los Angeles based on its classic TV sketches, a six-part documentary on the IFC channel, a book describing its live performances and a rare coming together of the group's five living members for a Q&A session in New York.

HERE is the Oxford English Dictionary on the word "Pythonesque": "After the style of, or resembling the humor of, Monty Python's Flying Circus, a popular British television comedy series that first ran from 1969 to 1974 and is noted for its absurdist or surrealist humor." Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English defines it more particularly as "pertaining to something that is fast-paced, surreal, and following stream-of-consciousness."

During medieval times, King Arthur and his court searched relentlessly for the Holy Grail in order to save their kingdom. In the '70s, a troupe of British actors set out on its own comical pursuit of the Grail, delighting television and movie audiences in England and elsewhere. And, 20 years later, teen-agers continue the pursuit, converging upon video stores for copies of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

In the mood for a little medieval merry-making? I didn't think I was, but Monty Python has a way of coaxing you into its giddy time machine for a journey that, no matter how far-flung, usually ends up in the troupe's delightfully familiar backyard of anachronistic zaniness. You certainly don't have to be a cult follower to enjoy "Monty Python's Spamalot," the Tony-winning musical largely based on "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," one of the films that extended the global reach of the group's distinctive brand of British hilarity.

Erin Cosgrove's pseudo-historical, multimedia epic "What Manner of Person Art Thou?" turns a sharp eye on matters of faith, revelation and the quasi-religious longings of secular society. By turns comic and bloody, silly and harrowing, the project, whose various incarnations span the UCLA Hammer Museum and the Carl Berg Gallery, is impressive in its breadth and astute in its satire. The story, told most directly in a 65-minute animated video at the Hammer, revolves around the figures of Elijah Yoder and Enoch Troyer, sole surviving members of an isolated Christian fundamentalist sect that's been decimated by a mysterious epidemic.