Dickensian boarding school with its beatings forged my career, says Python’s Eric Idle
ERIC Idle says his “Dickensian” schooldays, including beatings by teachers, shaped his career as one of Britain’s most prolific and enduring comedians. Idle, who wrote and starred in Monty
Python’s Flying Circus and staged the award-winning musical Spamalot, was sent to boarding school after his war veteran father Ernest died on the way home to South Shields in Dec 1945.
The young Idle was beaten by his teachers and given just 6d (2.5p) a week to spend on treats. Idle, 72, told Telegraph Money: “My father, who was a sergeant in the RAF during the Second World War, was killed in a hitch-hiking accident. My mother had to get work, as a nurse, and at seven the RAF put me into a boarding school and ex-orphanage called the Royal Wolverhampton.
“I remained there for 12 years. The living conditions were Dickensian and the teachers were allowed to beat us.
“We were given sixpence a week pocket money, which we spent in the tuck shop, so they got it all back. Having little money to spend was a valuable learning experience. My schooling also shaped my work ethic because while other children were listening to The
Goons, I was studying, which enabled me to go to Cambridge University.”
Idle said the Python stars lived handto-mouth, even once famous: “My first professional job was appearing in a disastrous theatre production of Oh! What
a Lovely War in Leicester Rep. “When I was 23 I started writing for
I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again and was paid three guineas for every minute’s airtime. When, in 1966, I progressed to
The Frost Report, I was paid 10 guineas. I was guaranteed three minutes a week, so this was good money. It was also good fun. You could write a joke in the pub at lunchtime and watch it performed on television that evening.”
Idle and the other original Pythons were each paid £2,000 per series by the BBC and supplemented their income with films, books and records.
The turning point came in their fortunes came when the Pythons sued US television network ABC for breach of contract in 1975. They acquired the Python master tapes, letting them retain copyright and exercise financial control over their work.
Idle says his first “serious” money
came from Spamalot, a musical adapted from the 1975 film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. On a Broadway run in 2005 it was seen by more than two million people and grossed more than $175 million (£120 million).
Plans to extend a potentially lucrative Monty Python farewell world tour ended when Michael Palin pulled out.
But Idle, who has a £3 million home in Los Angeles and a house in Provence, says there was no bitterness.