Philip Key meets ex-Python and Spamalot creator Eric Idle, and hears of his fond memories of Merseyside
MONTY PYTHON star Eric Idle says his fifth birthday was one to remember. “I spent it on the Overhead Railway in Liverpool, and then it was back to the ABC tearooms for some scones.”
Idle had just moved to Wallasey at the time where he was to spend the next two years at St George’s School.”It was lovely, I love Wallasey.”
But it was not to last. At the age of seven, he was sent to school in Wolverhampton, which he hated.
“Wallasey had been a lovely place to be and there I was stuck in Wolverhampton. Well, 12 years of that was enough.”
He later studied English at Cambridge University, met John Cleese and Graham Chapman and later with Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam formed the Monty Python team.
Today he lives in the United States, and at 67 is working as hard as ever. “You’re not allowed to get old in the USA,” he suggests. “You have to keep working until you drop dead and you need three or four jobs just to pay for your health care. They don’t have old people, just workers.”
We are meeting at Manchester’s Opera House, where the latest incarnation of his show, Spamalot, had just opened before it arrives at the Liverpool Empire next month.
Among his many projects, it has been one of the most successful, picking up awards on Broadway, enjoying a long run in West End, opening in other countries and now touring Britain.
Based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it pokes fun at the musical theatre genre while also spoofing the medieval history of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
The touring production is completely new with new sets, cast and – for the first time – Idle and his musical writing partner John Du Prez own the show.
“When the Americans owned the show in London, they wanted to take that version on tour and continue to make us no money whatsoever. We told them to run away, we are English people and do our own tours!”
Harold Panter, of the Ambassador Theatre Group – which owns the Empire and Opera House among other theatres – went to see Idle. “He persuaded us to do a less expensive mounting of the show, a reimagining of it with a new director, new sets and costumes and it was a very good idea.
“The whole thing now moves like lightning, very English, fast and furious.”
Liverpool’s Bill Kenwright is co-producing. “I have only just discovered that. I was surprised as I have never met him, although I know the name and I am happy to have him with us.”
