MONTY PYTHON: THE MEANING OF LIVE

UK, 2014, 90 minutes, Colour.
The Python team, Chris Beach, Hollis Gilliam, Carol Cleveland, Mike Myers.
Directed by Roger Graef, James Rogan.

In 2014, the five living members of the Monty Python team decided to offer a final live concert. It was several decades after their last live concert and Graham Chapman had died. They continually remind us at this stage that they are 70 and over. They agreed that they should win their careers as Pythons to a concert climax, urged on by their producer, Chris Beach, assisted by Holly Gilliam, daughter of Python, Terry Gilliam. And, they decided that the concert should be filmed and released in cinemas all around the world.

For fans and devotees of Monty Python, this is, of course, more than a must.

While the fans can go back and watch the various episodes from their television series, can look at the various films that they made and enjoy them again and again, while they can listen to the music of the theatre piece, Spamalot, and while they can see how effective the subsequent careers of each member have been, John Cleese and comedy in film roles, Michael Palin and his acting as well as travel series on television, Terry Jones and directing films, Terry Gilliam achieving even greater success as a film director of many cult classics, and Eric Idle, the comedian, star of many films, and the creative talent behind this show.

Yes, they are in their 70s, but still full of humour and vitality – but, with his sad admission, Terry Jones was beginning to suffer from memory difficulties; and died a few years after this show.

While there are many of their favourite acts reproduced for this film, with the elaborate staging for the O2 Arena in London with its vast audience space and stage, the performance seen on the stage itself as well on large screens, this film is a documentary, not a film of the performance.

So, it is a behind-the-scenes documentary, the car seen in casual and serious mode, waiting to go on, dressing rooms, corridors, interacting with those working on stage, other performers, and some turning to the camera personnel themselves. These are revealing scenes of each of the Pythons with their distinctive personalities, interactions with each other, comments on each other.

The film also offers a history of the live performances of the Pythons, especially during the 1970s and up to 1980, in various countries, especially in the New York Center and, as they laugh, at the Hollywood Bowl.

They also offer some discussion about how they deal with the different moods of an audience, with an audience not laughing as expected, John Cleese illustrating this by comments on his silly walks performance, his not wanting to do it, and then it being well received and becoming part of his act. A lot of the discussion about the production comes from Eric idle as he talks about putting on the performance as well as his own performance. Fans will be familiar with many of the characters that they are seen to portray, a surprise being on the occasion of televising the material before 9 PM, the watershed issue, and Michael Palin in persuasive drag as a matron commenting on this censorship issue, mouthing a lot of words that give the film a higher censorship rating.

But, for enjoyment, there are quite a number of excerpts from the variety of concerts given in the past, some glimpses of the television shows (but not of the movies).

But, it is reassuring to see the group, each of the men in their 70s, John Cleese, in fact, 75. They seem to have aged very well, appreciate what happened with them in becoming the Monty Python Flying Circus, the contribution of Graham Chapman, exasperating as he was, especially with his drinking, the sadness of his death and many inserts here of footage with him. But they reflect on the effect of their acts, their humour, the serious dimension, the touch of rebellion, the questioning of conventions, and the place that they had in worldwide imagination (with some footage of Mick Jagger watching them on television and thinking of them as old men!) And their having Mike Myers on stage with them in the final show.

It ends, as might be expected, with the group on stage singing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life..