Monty Python's Flying Circus
- TV sketch show
- BBC Two / BBC One
- 1969 - 1974
- 45 episodes (4 series)
Highly influential off-the-wall 1970s sketch series, starring John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. Also features Terry Gilliam and Carol Cleveland.
Press clippings Page 2
What would the joyless woke brigade make of Monty Python?
The first duty of comedy today is to pay homage to current moral fashions. Jokes don't have to be funny as long as they sneer at Brexit, praise socialist ideals, decry transphobia and wave a rainbow flag for diversity. Any show that can manage all that and raise more than a limp chuckle is a rarity.
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail, 13th March 2022Young viewers are about to discover a terrible truth: Python often weren't funny
Comedy fans have welcomed the return of the series after 34 years. But those unfamiliar with the Flying Circus may be in for a shock.
Ed Power, The Telegraph, 12th March 2022After 24 years, Monty Python is back on telly
Vintage TV channel That's TV has bought the rights to all four series of Monty Python's Flying Circus, which it will air uncut every weeknight at 9pm from Monday.
Chortle, 11th March 2022Range of Monty Python socks launched
Happy Socks has launched an official range of Monty Python socks, featuring six designed inspired by the group's work.
Chortle, 15th September 2021History of the BBC: Comedy and Satire
In 1948, the BBC published its now infamous 'Green Book', a set of guidelines for writers and producers of comedy. According to the preface, 'Programmes must at all cost be kept free of crudities, coarseness and innuendo. Humour must be clean and untainted directly or by association with vulgarity and suggestiveness.' On that basis, and had BBC writers and producers stuck rigidly to these guidelines, some of the great comedy classics would never have seen the light of day.
Dr Jamie Medhurst, BBC, 26th August 2021Judge removes dead parrot joke from class-action ruling
It is an ex-reference. It has ceased to be. Days after a CBC News story highlighted Canada's judicial love affair with Monty Python, a British Columbian judge has removed all references to the British comedy troupe's iconic "dead parrot" sketch from a recent class-action certification decision in B.C.
Jason Proctor, CBC, 26th July 2021Legendary sitcom producer/director Sydney Lotterby dies
Producer and director Sydney Lotterby, whose credits include Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Porridge, The Liver Birds and As Time Goes By, has died at the age of 93.
British Comedy Guide, 30th July 2020Disability need not be a punchline
British television and British humour are two worlds that go hand in hand. British comedy television contains many representations of various groups, but disability often meets comedy at an intersection where disabled people sit at the butt of cheap jokes: from the severely sight impaired American cartoon character Mr Magoo to the use of mental health problems for comedic gain in Peep Show.
Bethany Dawson and Tobias Soar, Black on White TV, 9th July 2020Ministry of Silly Walks comes to Berkshire village
The residents of a Berkshire village have been filmed re-enacting one of British comedy's most famous sketches.
Monty Python fan James Ruffell put up signs outside his house in Sonning informing people they were entering the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Silly Walks.
He filmed the results with a motion-controlled webcam and uploaded the subsequent silliness to Facebook.
BBC, 28th May 2020Monty Python's Flying Circus, series 3 Blu-Ray review
Continuing my reviews of Network Distributing's remastered high-definition versions of Monty Python's Flying Circus (read the first and second parts here), Series 3 finds the show at its height of popularity on television, albeit with a few signs of fatigue or repetition and less classic sketches in its arsenal.
Dan Owen, Frame Rated, 7th April 2020