The Pythons were there for Terry... despite all the fallouts

Historian Robert Ross on new biography

- FRAN WINSTON

From dead parrots to the Ministry of Silly Walks, Monty Python blazed a trail with their unique brand of anarchic, and very bizarre, comedy.

But in latter years the performers responsible for so many classic sketches were plagued by a series of much-publicised fallings-out.

This made a reunion seem unlikely. But now comedy historian Robert Ross has achieved the impossible, sort of, with all of the surviving Pythons contributing to his new biography on the late Terry Jones.

Terry, an acclaimed actor, director, children's author, historian and writer as well as one of the founding members of the Pythons, died at 77 in 2020 following a battle with dementia.

Robert, a friend and collaborator of Jones for two decades, reveals: "Maybe six months before he got really ill, Terry was sharing another brilliantly funny anecdote about something and I said, "Terry, you've really got to sit down and write your memoirs one of these days" There was plenty of material, after all.

Jones's portrayal in Monty Python's Life Of Brian of the Virgin Mandy -seeing off the gathering crowds by saying of her son: "He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy", remains one of the team's best-loved moments.

As one-sixth of the Pythons, Jones also created the Spam sketch with Michael Palin and played Mr Creosote, the monstrously obese and vulgar restaurant diner who explodes after being persuaded to eat a "waferthin" after-dinner mint.

Robert continues: "Before I could say, 'Millions of people would want to read it', he said, 'Actually, I haven't got enough time.

"He took my hand and said, 'When I'm dead, you can write it for me. So that's what I've done, which is a privilege and a huge responsibility." The result is Seriously Silly: The Life of Terry Jones, and it provides an extraordinary glimpse into not only Terry's life but the early days of the Pythons with help from all of them apart from Graham Chapman, who died aged 48 in 1989.