Monty Python

"Spamalot," the musical comedy billed as "lovingly ripped off" from the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," won 14 Tony nominations Tuesday in the race for Broadway's top honor. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," another musical based on a film, and "The Light in the Piazza," with a score by the grandson of Broadway great Richard Rodgers, each received 11 nominations. The winners will be announced at a ceremony at Radio City Music Hall on June 5.

What've we got? Well, there's Monty Python. Python, egg and Python. Python, bacon, Python and Python.... These days, everything is coming up Monty Python, it seems. On Broadway, "Spamalot," Eric Idle's musical version of the classic 1975 farce "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," is causing "Producers"-like guffaws. The very un-idle Idle's latest book, "The Greedy Bastard Diary: A Comic Tour of America," was recently published.

Eric IDLE'S stiff-as-a-board leg is stretched out before him like an Arthurian battering ram barging its way toward the Holy Grail. He's wheelchair-bound after knee surgery, but his voice -- perhaps the only one in existence that combines the ease and snobbery of the Queen's English with the pugnacious provincialism of every besieged little man -- is going at full throttle.

Broadway will have its own Monty Python gang next year: David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry and Hank Azaria. The three actors will star in "Spamalot," a new musical adapted from the comedy film classic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," it was announced Wednesday. "Spamalot," directed by Mike Nichols, opens March 10, 2005, at the Shubert Theatre. Preview performances begin Feb. 7. An out-of-town engagement will play at Chicago's Shubert Theatre Dec. 21 to Jan. 16.

I was crucified once and frankly I don't recommend it. It's a scary experience, especially when you find John Cleese next to you, and there's that odd Graham Chapman smoking a pipe, and Terry Gilliam is complaining about the shot and Michael Palin is nattering away to everyone in particular.

As "counter-programming" to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," Monty Python's 1979 satire "Life of Brian" is being re-released late next month, with trailers headed for the theaters starting on Good Friday. "I intend it, hopefully, to serve as an antidote to all the hysteria about Mel's movie," Rainbow Film President Henry Jaglom told Reuters.

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK" ... "Always look on the bright side of life" ... "Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!" If you're a fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus, you know the lines by heart. And that worked both for and against former Pythoneer Eric Idle as he concluded his "Greedy Bastard" tour at the Henry Fonda Theatre on Friday.

It's a rare comic actor who can make audiences laugh just by looking at him, but Eric Idle has that kind of presence. An unbridled goofball with a gift for parody, the 60-year-old Monty Python alum has played so many outrageous characters over the years that he is practically comedy incarnate.

"Monty Python's The Meaning of Life," the last film starring the seminal British comedy troupe of John Cleese, the late Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin, has some of the grossest -- and to some fans, funniest -- sketches ever on screen.

Neil Innes has performed at the Hollywood Bowl and has acted in some of the classic film comedies of recent decades. Paul McCartney produced one of his records, and Innes also co-starred in the cult-beloved Beatles spoof "The Rutles." His songs for that 1978 NBC mockumentary were ingeniously crafted gems, each one approximating a Fab Four moment while asserting its own identity and charm. In addition, Innes can claim membership in one of British rock's '60s favorites, the Bonzo Dog Band.