Neil Innes
- English
- Actor and composer
Win Innes's new biography, Dip My Brain In Joy
"Some called him the seventh Python, but I prefer to think of him as the first Neil Innes" - Michael Palin
Neil Innes was, quite simply, a comedy powerhouse.
His long career features credits with Ted Ray and Kenneth Williams, notable interactions with The Beatles, co-creating and composing for The Rutles, and being part of the brilliant comedy outfit The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He even coined the term 'Cool Britannia'.
If that weren't enough, his extensive collaborations with the Monty Python troupe led to his regularly being described as 'the seventh Python', writing many songs for the group's hit films - and, yes, performing that iconic whistle in Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life.
Without a key TV comedy role of his own, however, Innes is today largely overlooked by the mainstream. Following his sudden death in December 2019, Neil's widow, Yvonne, now sets the record straight and shines a light on his wealth of awe-inspiring achievements in new, official biography Dip My Brain In Joy: A Life With Neil Innes.
Celebrating their near-60 year relationship and all of Neil Innes's considerable comic and musical talents, it is "a heartfelt, eyewitness tale of the life of one of British culture's quiet geniuses", paying tribute to "life inside the circus, with the gentlest and wisest of clowns".
Brand new from Nine Eight Books in autumn 2024, the book tells the inside story of a lynchpin of the comedy and popular cultural revolution of the 1960s that led directly to Monty Python's Flying Circus and much else besides.