What to know
- John Cleese brought his Not Dead Yet! tour to Toronto for three performances at the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres.
- The show paired a screening of 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail with a live conversation and audience Q&A.
- Cleese said the Pythons discarded about 97 per cent of their first draft before Michael Palin’s coconut gag helped them understand what the movie should be.
- He also shared his rules for collaboration and creativity: two writers are ideal, don’t force ideas and, above all, focus on story.
- The Canadian leg continues in Ottawa on Oct. 9 and 10 before the tour returns for U.S. dates in 2027.
For fans of British comedy troupe Monty Python and the short-lived but iconic TV series Fawlty Towers, it is always a thrill to be in the company of one of the creators, John Cleese.
He has been to Toronto before, many times, but this time it’s for Not Dead Yet! — celebrating the 50th, now 51st, anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the groundbreaking, outrageous film that is part absurdity, part wise in the ways of science and history.
The last of his three-night run at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre on Oct. 1 lasted about three hours, including the screening of the film, a brief intermission, and an hour-long conversation and Q&A, with Cleese sharing stories about the making of the …Holy Grail, taking questions from host, Toronto film critic Richard Crouse, and most importantly answering questions from his loyal subjects: the audience.
The evening began with a brief introduction by Cleese.
He said that while preparing the show, he “noticed something I never noticed before” about Monty Python and the Holy Grail: In a 2017 BBC poll of international film critics about the top 100 funniest comedies of all time, …Holy Grail is No. 15 and Life of Brian is No. 6. “Only time you have two in the first 15, not bad, eh?” he said, showing the chart, then adding that Life of Brian “is the superior film” and he’ll “just come back” and do that show next time.
He then recalled how the Pythons — Cleese alongside the late Graham Chapman and Terry Jones, and not-dead-yet Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. — made Holy Grail in 1974 with no idea how to make a film. We knew we were good at sketches, but we didn’t know how to do a film, how to make a story.” After arguing for several days, he said, they wrote a draft, reunited, and found it “absolutely awful.” One scene, however, changed everything: Palin’s coconut idea (it’s the film’s opener and threaded throughout).
“When he read that, we all said, ‘That’s what the film’s about.’” They ultimately threw out 97% of the first draft. The coconuts stayed.
He talked for a few more minutes and then left while the sold-out theatre enjoyed the screening.
No matter how many times one sees Monty Python and the Holy Grail, those who relish absurd British humour still laugh. There are so many amazing lines that most Python fans have probably used in their own lives: “Tis but a scratch,” “Just a flesh wound,” “None shall pass,” and the French Taunter’s “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.” In fact, anyone who takes the time to memorize the script has the best insults at their disposal: “You don’t frighten us, English pig dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person.”
If you haven’t seen the film, the plot is as follows: King Arthur seeks the finest and bravest knights to join him at his court in Camelot, including Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedevere, Sir Galahad and Sir Robin. God then appears and sends them on a quest for the Holy Grail. Along the way, they encounter the Knights Who Say “Ni.” (They were formerly the Knights Who Say “Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing.”) Okay, okay, you just have to watch it; it’s too hard to explain.
At the end of the screening, Crouse came out to tell us how the rest of the night would unfold. There were microphones set up at the bottom of both main-floor aisles, and audience members could line up to ask this comedy legend a question.
There was a 10-minute break for people to buy merch or get a beverage, and then Cleese came out, wearing bunny slippers, with a stuffed bunny on the table between him and Crouse.
Cleese, who turns 87 on Oct. 27, was playful and gave thorough answers, ensuring fans went home smiling with stories to tell for days, like asking a gentleman to “move your beard out of the way” or telling a woman who began with her name, “I don’t care what you’re called.”
Asked about his favourite moments in the film, he chose the medieval taunting scene, explaining that the jokes only work because the insults aren’t really angry: “You empty-headed animal food trough wiper” is funny precisely because it is “not terribly insulting.”
For a favourite scene he didn’t write, he picked Palin’s sequence with the two guards who can’t understand that they’re supposed to keep his son inside, revealing that there were no cuts in the scene at all. “Terry just put the camera there and let them be funny,” adding that that’s something modern comedy has lost because “we don’t trust people to be funny.”
Asked about teamwork, he explained that “a good team does not have people who are good at the same things,” and that the Pythons “were six writers who happened to perform their own stuff because they were less likely to fuck it up.”
The Pythons also didn’t all write together in a room. He said he discovered at the beginning of his career that too many people isn’t productive: “four is no good, because one of the four will always not like what’s just been said. Three is possible, but it’s slow. Two is ideal, because if you’re bouncing off someone else, you get to places you’d never get to on your own.”
On creativity, he stressed that you can’t force the process: “You just have to get in the right mood,” avoid interruptions, and play until something emerges.
He described how a random conversation about the word “plummet” led to Chapman suggesting a sheep—and suddenly they were writing a sketch about flying sheep.
He also passed on advice from his late friend, Academy Award-winning screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men): “It’s all about story.” Every scene should move the story forward, and one way to test a script is to tell the plot to a friend over dinner and notice when they get bored.
And, naturally, when someone asked for the funniest type of cheese, he answered: “Limburger,” a nod to Monty Python’s brilliant Cheese Shop sketch.
Unfortunately, because Crouse, who has interviewed Cleese before and hosted the previous two shows at the Elgin, asked too many questions himself, three people were left unable to ask theirs because they ran out of time. It must’ve been disappointing.
After Toronto, Cleese took the show to Hamilton on Saturday, and he heads next to Montreal’s L’Olympia on Oct. 7–8, followed by Ottawa’s Babs Asper Theatre at the National Arts Centre on Oct. 9–10. An extensive U.S. tour is in March, continuing into April. As the advertising for these shows state: Don’t say “Ni!” – say “Now!” Tickets won’t last forever…unlike John, apparently.
