Graham Chapman’s opinion

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The announcement this week that the surviving members of the Monty Python team were getting back together has caused an understandable flurry of excitement. This isn’t something I share despite having the entire run of the Python films and TV series on DVD. I usually feel the same way about band reunions: rather than revisit past glories I prefer to see people doing something new. That said, it would be nice if Eric Idle would allow a DVD release of his Rutland Weekend Television series. His low-budget Python spin-off was broadcast once in the 1970s and hasn’t been seen since, to the continual annoyance of co-star and collaborator Neil Innes.

Graham Chapman will be absent from the reunion, of course. His polemic for Channel 4’s Opinions has nothing to do with Monty Python beyond his presence but it’s something I’ve always remembered so it’s good to find it on YouTube. Opinions was a run of half-hour pieces-to-camera by a different person each week; I saw this one when it was broadcast in 1984 but don’t recall any of the others. Chapman’s contribution was memorable at the time for his talking directly and unapologetically about alternatives to heterosexual relations, and what we’d now call hetero-normativity. This would hardly raise an eyebrow today but in 1984 attitudes towards gay people in the UK were growing increasingly harsh under a right-wing government, a virulent press, and the beginning of the AIDS crisis. Chapman’s plea for universal tolerance wouldn’t have made much of an impression but it was good to hear someone talking this way, even if only for 30 minutes on the channel with the least amount of viewers. Chapman was the first person I saw talking on TV about being gay at a time (the 1970s) when few people in public life dared to admit such a thing. His cheerful example was a great riposte to an atmosphere of widespread fear and loathing. His Opinions piece is witty, silly, over-exuberant (as his acting often was), and self-reflexive in the manner the Pythons made their own. You also get to see his partner, David Sherlock, in a variety of background roles. Watch it here.

2 thoughts on “Graham Chapman’s opinion”

  1. this was great! thanks!
    I too am not thrilled by the return of Python. If they had simply made a new film, I would have loved it. But to see really old Python on stage doing the same gags… ugh. But, certainly, the whole spectacle is made worse by the clamoring fanboys that will be there in force reciting every line along with them. It sounds grim, to be sure.

    (Incidentally, what will Gilliam do? His onscreen appearances were mostly incidental filler, as he was never a strong performer as the rest. However, his is animations remain genius!)

  2. In 2006 Michael Palin was saying “Python isn’t a rock band playing greatest hits” but I can’t see how they’ll avoid that:

    http://www.mojo4music.com/9372/monty-python-vinyl-years/

    Gilliam did help with the sketch-writing, I think. The Hollywood Bowl show has some visual gags that look very much like his work, especially the bit where someone hanging in mid-air gets shot by accident.

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