成人快手

1. He was going to be a journalist, before taking a sillier path

Even as a child, Eric Idle loved writing. So much so, that he planned to become a journalist. “I think I’d always say journalist because it seemed like a writing thing to do,” he says, “but I had no idea what it really meant.” At the age of about 20, he realised his future might lie in a different kind of writing.

Alan Bennet, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook in Beyond the Fringe

Watching Beyond the Fringe, a satirical show from Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennet, he was astonished by how Cook particularly could take any subject – politics, news, mundane daily life – and make comedy out of it. “It was a spark of saying, you don’t have to take all this seriously,” he says. “’This is sort of rubbish, so you can be funny about it.’ It changed what I wanted to do. When I [went] to Cambridge [University], the first thing I did was audition for the comedy review.”

2. Monty Python was meant to be a temp job

At Cambridge, Idle met John Cleese. After finishing university, both began writing for TV, which, through various projects, introduced Idle to the rest of the future Python crew: Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam. In 1969, Idle, Palin, Gilliam and Jones were offered their own show, but they were going to have to wait a while to make it, which left them with a gap in their diaries.

“We had an offer from ITV saying… ’We’d like you to have a grown-up show at 9 o’clock. Unfortunately, we can’t give you a studio for 18 months,’” says Idle. “Meanwhile, John and Graham said, ‘Oh we’ve got an offer from the 成人快手 for a Sunday night show.’ We thought we might as well do it [with them] while waiting for our big break.” That show, intended to just fill some time, became Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

3. He doesn't like talking to people before lunch

Idle on Rutland Weekend Television

While most of the Pythons wrote in pairs, Idle always worked on his own. “I don’t like talking to people in the morning,” he says. “I don’t think you should speak to anybody before lunch… I get up early and write at 5.30am, so I write alone.”

It’s still how he likes to work, but it came with a downside in his Python days, when it came to voting on whose sketches would be in the show. “[The people writing in pairs] had two votes and I only had one!”

4. Elvis loved his ‘Nudge Nudge’ sketch

One of Idle’s most famous Python sketches is the “Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink” man, who makes lewd conversation in pubs. Idle originally wrote it in the hope of selling it to The Two Ronnies. “They sent it back because there’s no jokes in it,” he laughs. “It’s just suggestion. It’s all in the performance.”

When he later took it to a Python pitch meeting, it was an immediate hit. “It was one of the first things to go in [to the show].” The Two Ronnies may not have got it, but Idle heard it had another very famous fan. “I found in a book that Elvis [Presley] called everyone ‘Squire’ after my ‘Nudge Nudge’ sketch!”

5. He loves that his song is used at funerals

Asked which Python sketch he’s most proud of, Idle says, “I’m very proud of the fact that Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (from Life Of Brian) has been the number one funeral song in England for the last 20 years. I find that very moving. It really pleases me that people would choose that at a very solemn moment.”

6. Life of Brian wouldn’t have happened without George Harrison

Idle chooses former Beatle George Harrison as one of his key cultural influences. They first met at a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “We talked all night and sort of bonded,” he says. “Looking back on it, I think we played similar roles in our groups. He had two big powerful blocks, Lennon and McCartney, and I was between two big powerful blocks, and we were like the individual ones who had to bounce between.”

Harrison became a vital part of the Python journey. While trying to make Life of Brian, the Pythons lost their initial funding when their producer worried it was too controversial. They struggled to find another backer. “Nobody wanted to know,” says Idle. “George kept saying, ‘I’ll find you the money’.” And he did. His own money. “He mortgaged his house. Mortgaged his offices. He raised cash from the bank. He put it all on Life of Brian… $4.5 million.” The film became a box office smash.

7. He laughed when he found out he had pancreatic cancer

In 2019, Idle was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which he found perversely hilarious.

In the 2000s, he’d tried to write a (never staged) show called Death: The Musical. “It was about a guy writing a play about death…and learning he’s dying,” he says. “I went to my doctor and said, ‘I’ve got to get rid of a character very quickly. What’s the quickest way?’… He said, ‘Pancreatic cancer.’… Twelve years later, we’re looking at a screen and I said, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘Pancreatic cancer.’ I laughed. I thought it was very funny.” Fortunately, surgery removed the cancer in its entirety. “I’m still here, just about.”