Innes ‘tragic’ Python feud

MONTY Python songwriter Neil Innes’s death this week has left his friend Carol Cleveland devastated.

The actress, who shared the title of ‘7th Python’ with Innes, says it was tragic he didn’t perform at the troupe’s 2014 reunion at London’s 02.

‘It’s quite a shock, and very sad indeed,’ she tells me. ‘I called him to say how sorry I was that he wasn’t going to be joining us for the O2 shows. He and Eric [Idle] had a misunderstanding over royalties and that’s why he wasn’t with us, which I and the Pythons thought was rather sad. He really should have been with us. It’s tragic that he wasn’t.’

The pair fell out over the latter’s Spamalot which used Innes’s songs. ‘Eric is going to have to explain what happened to my royalties,’ Innes told me at the time. ‘He has gone too far. He said anyone could have written those songs. It so happens I wrote them.’