Eric Idle, comedian: Nothing is off limits in comedy

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0:59CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that. Bull spend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash broadcast. That's linkedin.com slash broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, I'm BBC presenter John Wilson, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service, the best conversations coming out of the BBC, people shaping our world from all over the world.

1:54If you're not a little bit afraid, then you're not paying attention. We have never seen a people so united. Do not make that boat crossing. Do not make that journey. Being born in America, feeling American, having people treat me like I'm not. We're more popular than populism. For this interview, I met the English comedian, writer, musician and actor Eric Idle at BBC Broadcasting House in London. He's best known for being a founder member of the comedy troupe Monty Python, writing and performing across their four television series and films, including The Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.

2:31He was also behind the Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot, based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. For over 20 years, the stage musical has run twice in London's West End and on Broadway, and has also been staged in 14 countries around the world. But success didn't always come easily. At one point, a member of the Beatles stepped in to fund Eric's comedic vision when others said no. In 1979, Monty Python reconvened for The Life of Brian, and, of course, George Harrison played such a key role, he underwrote the film. He paid for it, didn't he? So we started to make it in Tunisia and build sets in our own money, and then Lou Gray read it.

3:11And he said, we're not making this at all, this is not us. Then we had to go to New York and try and raise the money for this film that had just been now banned. Nobody wanted to know. And George was saying, I've found you the money, I've got it. And he'd mortgaged his house and he'd mortgaged his offices and he'd raise the cash from the bank and put it all on the life of Brian. That's astonishing, isn't it? It's astonishing because it would never have been made, I think.

3:41Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Eric Idle. You were born in South Shields, but brought up, I believe, in various parts of the UK. Where are your earliest memories rooted? I think I would be, say, Wallasey. I was at school at five. Merseyside. On the Merseyside, yes. And then at seven, I went to exotic Wolverhampton, where there are lots of memories, but not always good ones. I was there for 12 years at a boarding school, which was paid for by the RAF. And this is because your father, I believe, died when you were... Two and a half. Yeah. And so you were brought up by your mother alone.

4:23Did you have siblings? No. So how did she cope? Well, I mean, she didn't really, but she was a health visitor in Wallersey, and then I went to school there, and then she found this RAF place where it had taken over an orphanage. Really the oddest thing of all about being in school there was nobody had a father. And I think that's psychologically very strange. And none of the kids there? Well, I mean, they were all being paid for by the RAF. I'm very grateful for that, actually, because without that I wouldn't have gone to university at all. I mean, it was later on you found your escape by reading and learning as you got older.

5:01In the notes that you sent us, you mentioned getting a guitar and a typewriter when you were around 12 years old. So, of course, being known as a comic performer, a writer and a songwriter, they sound very significant gifts to have received. Well, I think the thing was Elvis appeared on television and that just changed our lives. We just loved him. So I wanted a guitar immediately. And now we're in a little skiffle group and we played. And I always had the guitar. I've had it ever since. but my gran gave me a typewriter because I used to write short stories and things and read out to the form but having a little portable typewriter was amazing.

5:38So at the age of 12, did you imagine from then that you might have a future as an entertainer in some way or a writer? No. I mean, you know, it was getting through the week really. I mean, you know, they said, what are you going to be on? I think I'd always say journalist because it seemed like a writing thing to do but I didn't have an idea what it really meant. So writing was your main outlet then at that time, with that typewriter? Well, reading has always been my main outlet, because I think that allows you, in a big school, like a dormitory that was 100 yards long, in a big school, privacy is what you need, and so reading was the real escape.

6:16So a whole school full of fatherless boys. I know. What did that do for the bonding process or the dynamics, social dynamics? It made you into gangs. You were very, our form was very, you know, we'd climb over the wall and get beer and chase girls. And they never took a straight exam ever because we'd always break into the master's studies, take the back off their cupboards, get the exam papers and then exam paper itself. And we'd write out the answers and take them into the exam. So when I, the only straight exam they ever took was O-level at 16. And when I came back from that, there were only six of us left.

6:51They'd all gone because they didn't really learn anything. They just copied. And what was the teaching like? Pretty poor. But, I mean, my history teacher was great and a geography teacher. And my history teacher wrote to Pembroke College and recommended me at Cambridge. And that was kind of unusual because nobody went to college, even university. So when I got to Cambridge, the first thing I did was audition for the comedy review because that changed my life. Was that part of Footlights? No, it was just the Pembroke College review. and they gave the first sketch I ever did, they gave to me, it was written by John Cleese.

7:25When you first met John Cleese at that point, did you establish a rapport, a relationship with him? Well, he came with Humphrey Barclay and they were very kind and encouraging and they said, you must join the whole. And then I did the next term, you had to audition, a live audition in a smoking concert there. It was very strange because I looked down, what's his name, Amos, Kingsley Amos. Kingsley Amos was sitting on the front row. I'm never not being able to believe Kingsley Amos was sitting there watching me audition for the Footlights. Then they put me in the Edinburgh Festival replacement castle and I did all the Bill Oddy roles, which were mainly songs.

8:04So I learned about singing funny songs. He wrote very, very witty lyrics, Bill. And then when he did I'm Sorry I Read That Again, every week he'd do a new song. And I became a writer for that. This is just after Edinburgh, when you started first writing for television and radio on... I'm sorry, I'll read that again. And also the Frost Report, of course, on television. And writing for those shows as well were John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Terry Jones. So was there a bond between you immediately as a quintet? Well, Cleese was actually in the show and Marty Feldman was a script editor.

8:40And it was lovely. There were every major and Barry Choy, all the major writers. and they just, we were very young, we were 23, and they were very kind and helpful and accepting and encouraged us. The lowest amongst the jobs was writing just one-liners for David Frost and then we won the Golden Rose of Montreux. Was there a time then, was there a moment around when you were all writing for Frost that you started to look at each other and think we could work together? What was that? Oh, it was a while before that. Humphrey Barclay, again, he asked me to write a children's television show called Do Not Adjust Your Set.

9:16And I said, OK, I will, but I want Mike and Terry. And so the three of us wrote it, and there was this very strange group called the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band. Vivian Stachel. And they were an art school band. And they were very weird, and I think they altered the way... They put a bit of the madness into Python because we were writing tight little Oxford and Cambridge review sketches, but they were much more situationist and did weird songs and weird performances. And I think they had a very strong influence. And that's where you got that absurdity, the surrealism. I think that really pushed the surrealism.

9:53And that, when Gilliam came and joined for the second series, and Mike and Terry said, no, absolutely not, go away. And I said, no, no, no, there's something about this bloke. Because he was an artist, a cartoonist. So eventually you all joined forces. I think John got an offer from the BBC. And then we had an offer from ITV saying, now you've done so well, we'd like you to have a grown-up show at 9 o 'clock. Unfortunately, we can't give you a studio for another 18 months. And so in the meanwhile, John and Graham said, oh, we've got this offer from the BBC for a Sunday night show. And we thought, well, we might as well do that while we're waiting for our big break.

10:33So Monty Python's Flying Circus first came about as a sort of fill-in. Well, we thought, well, why not? We might as well just do this one, and then we're going to get, you know... Famously, John Cleese and Graham Chapman wrote together and Terry Jones and Michael Palin were the other writing duo. Did you always write alone? Yes, I did. I don't like talking to people in the morning. I think you shouldn't speak to anybody before lunch. So I'm a very early writer. I get up early, I write at 5.30 and I write alone. And people say, well, how was that? And I say, well, I still work with myself. I've still got myself as a partner.

11:07The five of you and Terry Gilliam, so it's six. Was it a comic marriage of convenience or did you all get on? I think the thing is we had no idea what we were going to do. I think we'd done our, you know, that 10 ,000 hours thing. We'd done our 10 ,000 hours. We were in the right space and the BBC didn't really care. They were just trying out this empty slot they had at 10 o 'clock on a Sunday night. When the pubs closed, they had the feeling that people were still awake. And so they weren't really concerned. They didn't read the scripts. They said, just go away and make 13 shows. So we didn't really know what we were going to do, so we were sort of pushing the boundaries.

11:49We got rid of punchlines, for example, because it's so boring. You do a whole sketch and then it all depends on the punchline. And Gilliam was often given the task of taking the sketch on into the setup for the next sketch. Visually, with his animations. Visually, and I think that gave the whole show a framework. and it seemed like it was about something. Yes, but it became popular even in America, though, which is surprising given so much of the humour was very, very British and absurdist. But it only became popular in America after we'd finished doing it. So we weren't bothered by stardom, which was very nice.

12:23It came on quite by chance when we were opening The Holy Grail. So that would be 1975. So when we hit New York, we were kind of a cult hit, you know, and then they saw the movie. Holy Grail. And that was the first time we realised that people there was something special going on here. Even Elvis was a fan, I think, wasn't he? I couldn't believe it. I found it in a book that Elvis called everybody Squire after my nice nudge sketch. Which was, you know, it saved my life at boarding school. I couldn't believe it.

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14:10For this episode of The Interview, I'm speaking to the English comedian, writer, musician and actor Eric Idle. We recorded The Interview at BBC Broadcasting House in London on a Saturday morning. Eric arrived alone, no publicist or manager, and he was wearing a T-shirt adorned with a hand-drawn image and slogan. Under a sketch of a human skull were the words always look on the bright side of life. Part greatest hit reminder, part memento mori. He was, as you'd expect, charming and funny and he was keen to explore the various creative influences behind his work with Monty Python and beyond. OK, let's return to my conversation with Eric Idle.

14:53George Harrison, how did you meet him? Well, he befriended me. I mean, it was 50 years ago that I went with Gilliam to L.A. and we had a screening of the Holy Grail at the Directors Guild. And at the end of it, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and it was George Harrison. He said, I've been looking for you. Come on. And then we talked all night and we sort of bonded. Turn your tax refund into new tile at Minari's. Make this the year you check that project off the list. Some things never go out of style, like tile from Mohawk. You can count on the durability, easy maintenance, and timeless beauty of tile.

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