Pythons recoiled at pretentious V&A show
For most people, the offer of an exhibition of their work at the Victoria and Albert Museum would be an honour.
The museum in London, which has had a run of acclaimed shows, including ones dedicated to Pink Floyd and David Bowie, thought that it was on to a winner when it approached Monty Python last year. The comedians, who shaped British humour with Monty Python’s Flying Circus and their satirical film Life of Brian, were impressed at first with the suggestion that they were style idols, but enthusiasm faded as they clashed with curators over the exhibition title.
The collapse of the show has been revealed by Eric Idle in his memoir, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, in which he describes his irritation at the pretentiousness of the exercise. He recalls that the surviving members of the troupe – John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin – suggested to the museum that the exhibition title should be Monty Python: The Same Old Bollocks. ‘‘That title was very Python,’’ Idle wrote. ‘‘In-yourface aggressive modesty.’’
The museum turned it down, prompting the team to suggest Monty Python Exposed. The V&A demurred again and came back with From Dali to Dead Parrots, which the Pythons hated and which Idle took as a sign that the establishment was looking down on them. ‘‘It became clear they were doing an exhibition on surrealism, and the so-called roots of our work,’’ Idle continued. ‘‘Pretentious nonsense. We’re nothing to do with Dali or Duchamp. For me, Python has always been about comedy. That is the art. If you take us seriously you miss the joke, even though we were always deadly serious about being funny.’’
The final straw was that the museum insisted on having the final say. ‘‘I was never prouder of Python than when we all said no,’’ Idle wrote. ‘‘The museum couldn’t believe it.’’
The V&A suggested that there was also a financial element to the row.
‘‘Despite a constructive dialogue with the Pythons, unfortunately it wasn’t possible to agree a creative partnership that effectively combined the Python’s ideas with the V&A’S collections, extensive exhibition expertise and financial model,’’ it said.
Earlier in his memoir Idle explains that the Pythons snuck a joke at the expense of one of Life of Brian’s financial backers into the song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Bernard Delfont, chief executive of the distributor EMI, nearly scuppered the film by backing out at the last minute, and Idle sings: ‘‘I told them, Bernie I said, they’ll never make their money back.’’ The Pythons had sued and received a substantial settlement. – The Times