Written by and starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman, Tim Brooke-Taylor
Also Starring: The Lovely Amie McDonald
IMDB Entry
Monty Python didn't come out of nowhere. All its performers had already had sketch comedy shows on the BBC before then. The next two weeks, I'll be looking at a couple of them, starting with At Last the 1949 Show.
The cast are giants of sketch comedy. John Cleese and Graham Chapman, of course, founded Python and were a writing team throughout it. Marty Feldman -- who started as a writer -- became a surprising movie star, most notably in Young Frankenstein.
Tim Brooke-Taylor is lesser known, but he starred in The Goodies, a major success in the UK.* In addition, there were small roles for Python's Eric Idle and the Goodies' Bill Oddie.
The show was a series of sketches, with linking material provided by the Lovely Amie McDonald. Yes, that's what she called herself and the played a dumb blonde who was pure ego. She also introduced the line "And now for something completely different."
The sketches covered some of the ground the Python would -- shopkeeper interactions, parodies, etc. They are funny, but not reaching that height. Pythons did reprise some of them -- the "Four Yorkshirmen, where each of the people kept topping the other to show how miserable they were growing up, was used in their live films.
The show only lasted a season before the actors went their separate ways. As usual, the BBC didn't save any of the tapes, but they have since been uncovered and are available both online (TubiTV) and on DVD. The shows repeat sketches since some of them were compilations. It is a great look at how Monty Python's origins.
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*So funny that one of their audience members literally died laughing.
1 comment:
See also "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" on BBC radio, featuring Tim Brooke-Taylor and John Cleese, repeats of which have shown up online over the years on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Another BBC TV sketch comedy show from the 1960s whose saving of its tapes was iffy was "Not Only But Also", whose stars, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, later did comedy LPs under their drunk/profane and at times brilliant (see, or rather hear, e.g., "Having a Wank" from the "Come Again" LP/CD) alter egos Derek and Clive. The resulting home video on VHS from the late 1990s, which I bought, was called "The Best of What's Left of 'Not Only But Also'". One highlight, which might still be up at YouTube, was a parody of such among the Gerry Anderson marionette adventure series as "Thunderbirds!", "Supercar" and "Stingray", under the portmanteau title "SuperTHUNDERstingcar!"
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