Michael Palin has explained why he thinks another Monty Python reunion would not work.
The comedy troupe was co-founded in 1969 by Palin alongside Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones.
They did a series of reunion shows back in 2014, but without Chapman who died of tonsil cancer in 1989, aged 48. Jones died in 2020, aged 77, from a rare form of dementia.
While several members of the troupe have reunited in private over the years, despite a bitter online spat between Cleese and Jones, Palin, 82, has now admitted that contact is rarer than usual.
“I don’t think we keep in touch with each other as much now,” he said in a new interview, calling their reunion shows “a very good farewell”.
“There are ideas for us getting together but now there’s only four of us left and people do their own things,” he told Saga Magazine.
“Eric has very much taken up the American way of life. John is doing well with Fawlty Towers in the West End, so he’s fine. Terry, I’m seeing tomorrow. He lives up the road. He’s always got a major film on the go, which he says has been messed up by some so-and-so. That’s how I know he’s happy.”
Addressing rumours of a stage production of classic 1979 comedy Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Palin said: “Yes, that has potential. I don’t know where that’s got to.”
However, he expressed ambivalence about an official reunion.
“I think what Python produced is what we produced when we were all together and when Graham was around. He was brilliant as the central character in Life of Brian.
“So to do something else without that aspect of it doesn’t seem to me quite right. It’s like a table with four legs, one of which is missing. It’s still just about usable, but it’s not very stable.”
Last year, both Cleese and Gilliam met with Palin to celebrate his 81st birthday. Idle, who now lives in Los Angeles, was absent from the festivities.
Cleese, who last year revealed he is “surprisingly poor” despite his five-decade career, posted a dinner table picture on X/Twitter of himself smiling alongside the pair, with Palin holding up a plate of dessert that had “Happy Birthday” written in chocolate sauce.
As well as Life of Brian, the troupe released films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python and the Meaning of Life (1983).
