Graham Chapman

Plaque for Monty Python star Graham Chapman

A plaque has been unveiled at Monty Python star Graham Chapman's childhood home by Michael Palin.

Graham Chapman: an unlikely friendship with a Python

John Cleese and co reunite this month, but one Python will be missing from the cast. Ken Levy recalls how a chance encounter backstage led to an unlikely friendship.

Radio Times review

Over the years the Flying Circus and their completely different style of humour have been pored over like a dead parrot, but this particular Pythonic probe is a different beast altogether...

The reverence in which the gang are still held 31 years after their last film, and 40 years after the TV series, is reflected by their forthcoming reunion shows selling out quicker than you can say "albatross".

Of course, the gang hasn't been the full Monty since 1989, when Graham Chapman went to join the choir invisibule. But "Gray" will make his presence felt in the shows via hand-picked clips.

Alan Yentob pursues the remaining Pythons as they pursue their individual projects, and as they come together for rehearsals. The fun comes from guessing which sketches will make the final cut. Will this be the right room for an Argument - "I've told you once" - or will the Four Yorkshiremen still be competing in onedownmanship? ("We were evicted from our hole in the ground"). The latter routine might lend itself to a more reflective interpretation now, with lines such as "I was happier then when I had nothin'." I wonder if the Pythons were, too...

TV review: Imagine... Monty Python

Python nuts will be miffed that an entire hour passed before there was any real reference to Graham Chapman, but it was heart-warming to see the team plan to include him in the stage show by inserting clips of him saying, 'Stop that! This is silly!'

Radio Times review

There are unassuming 50th birthday celebrations and there are 50th birthdays that go large. BBC Two is aiming for the latter as far as I can tell, and the great big cake with sparklers and a dancing girl inside is this two-hour comedy retrospective.

They've got everyone along, from The Goodies to Alan Alda to Vic 'n' Bob to several Pythons, all the stars of BBC2 donating soundbites to celebrate themselves and each other. It makes for one mammoth clip show, with things you've probably never seen before (Graham Chapman's post-Python sketch show Out of the Trees?) to things you wish you could un-see - (Tubbs breastfeeding a pig on The League of Gentlemen...) Plus, of course, a man beating a car bonnet with a branch.

It's a comedy banquet, but a banquet of nibbles: we get only a tiny taste of each classic. How about a season where shows like The Day Today and Big Train get full-length repeats? Now that would be a party.

Monty Python reunion - Will it fly or be a dead parrot?

If they are going to produce new work, however, the hardest challenge will surely be for Cleese, who tended to collaborate with the late Graham Chapman.

Although the Pythons were originally inspired by a title (Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory) to make an irreverent biblical comedy, Life of Brian is not about the son of God. It's about the guy in the next-door manger, born on the same night: Brian Cohen. It was an easy mistake to make; even the three wise men were momentarily fooled. Predictably, the film caused wide­spread outrage; accusations of blasphemy prevented it from being screened in many countries, while the marketing campaign cheerfully capitalised on the protest, proclaiming the film "so funny it was banned in Norway".

In spite of his obvious lack of divinity, and the fact that he's more interested in women and anti-imperialist politics than religion, Brian (Graham Chapman) is plagued by followers convinced that he's the saviour. The real Jesus is glimpsed at one point delivering his Sermon on the Mount, but Brian is so far back in the crowd that the people around him are wondering what Jesus meant by "blessed are the cheesemakers". Brian fixates on a rebellious young woman called Judith and gets tangled up with the People's Front of Judea (not to be confused with the Judean People's Front). A series of misadventures and misunderstandings lead him to Calvary, where the whole Messiah mix-up reaches its painful, and tuneful, climax.

The film was shot in Monastir, Tunisia, for $4m, with financing from George Harrison's HandMade Films, and each of the Pythons plays at least three roles. Michael Palin played 12, including a Boring Prophet and an ungrateful ex-leper who complains that, by curing him, Jesus has taken away his source of income.

These days, Life of Brian exists less as a film than as a series of endlessly quoted gags floating around in the popular imagination. People who have never even seen it can still chuckle heartily at "What have the Romans ever done for us?", or whistle Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. It's not like the Pythons took the narrative terribly seriously either: at one point, Brian is plucked out of a tight situation by a visiting alien spaceship. This is not necessarily a shortcoming, more a classic Python method of sending up something rather silly that has been taken far too seriously for its own good.

Monty Python's Terry Jones on Graham Chapman's biopic

We talked to original Python Terry Jones about Graham Chapman's drinking, his mum's influence, and Terry Gilliam's bossiness.

Video: Graham Chapman's life story told in 3D animation

A new 3D animation chronicles the life of Graham Chapman, one of the stars of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

It is an ambitious work involving three directors and 14 different animation studios.

Talking Movies' Tom Brook sat down with former Monty Python member Terry Jones who voices an animated version of himself in the film.

It's been more than 40 years since the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus aired on BBC One and we never looked at comedy - let alone spam, parrots or lumberjacks - in the same way again. This documentary marks the first time the surviving Pythons have come together for a project since 1983's The Meaning of Life]. Directed by Alan Parker, it features interviews with Terry Jones, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Eric Idle, as well as archive chat from late Graham Chapman. All tell the story of how they met at Oxbridge and The Frost Report, created trail-blazing television, made the transition into movies and ultimately became a British institution. Which, like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expected.