Monty Python: Before the Flying Circus

I am a huge "Monty Python" fan, so my not loving this documentary is surprising. But throughout I kept thinking....'wow...with such weird guys, why is the narration so incredibly boring and flat?!'. I wasn't the only one thinking that, as my daughter said the same....that the narration was all wrong. Uninspired, dull and lacking the sort of things that made "Monty Python" so funny. Now I am not saying the documentary isn't worth seeing...but it certainly could have been much better. Plus, the stodgy narration seems EXACTLY the sort of thing that "Monty Python" would have made fun of long ago!

The show is completely done in black & white. Considering all the clips were black & white prints, coloring everything black & white made sense. What it consists of are interviews with SOME of the Pythoners and a few of their friends....with various photos and film clips inserted throughout the show. I say some because Graham Chapman has long since died and, I can only assume, Terry Jones was ill and in his early struggle with dementia..though he did participate (though he was featured less often in the interviews). Otherwise, the rest of the Python cast appeared in the show.

I liked it. It is the standard government TV program fare. Yet, I was interested about the subject and they were able to provide new information and some archive photos. Now, if you are not a Pythonist there is nothing the production team would do to make it interesting. And I assume that if you have already read the bios of the guys, you would be equally unimpressed. Or if you are a true Pythonist and have closely followed their lives.

So it's badly made and uninteresting. But one might find some useful data as long as you have an hour to waste.

The pre-Monty Python years of the six members of the group. Covers their school and university days, their first individual forays into comedy, how the parts slowly came together and Monty Python's eventual formation.

Great drama on Monty Python, the foremost and most influential group in comedy. Well told, showing the childhood of the six all the way up to the formation. By telling their histories effectively in parallel you can see how the parts came together. You can also see what/who influenced them and how Monty Python's unique and original brand of comedy evolved even before Python was formed.

Only negative is that the documentary is far too short - I could have done with at least another 30 minutes.

If you lived in the UK in the 1950s and 60s (as I did), and are a Python fan, you will find this irresistible. Growing up as a kid listening to The Goon Show on the radio, I know exactly how they were influenced.

The way this disparate group found each other, and how they developed the way they did is well told, and at times laugh-out-loud funny. My only tiny quibble is that it is implied that David Frost was the founder of "That Was The Week That Was". He was the on air talent, and made famous by that show, but the production and writing team, headed by Ned Sherrin, deserve most of the credit there.