The Monty Python's Flying Circus team's first big-screen guffaw is a rerun of some of their famous TV sketches. The anarchic battiness of these early sketches doesn't quite hold up; the later efforts, in which the Pythons harnessed humour into a mock-historical context, were more successful. But it's fun to see Cleese, Palin, Idle and all in the loopy pomp of their youth.

The weekly interview: Eric Idle

Monty Python said goodbye two years ago with a final show at the O2 Arena in London, but like a parrot nailed to a perch, "final" is open for debate. Eric Idle and John Cleese, a full third of the Pythons, have split off in the past year to tour John Cleese and Eric Idle: Together Again at Last ... for the Very First Time, which stops at the Venetian November 18 and 19. It's fortuitous timing for Idle, who'll have a variety of restaurants to choose from. "It's my wife's birthday on the second night, so I'll have to buy her dinner or something," he deadpans during our phone interview.

Eric Idle blogs about touring with John Cleese

It's a kangaroo tour of Australia and New Zealand. I shall be hopping round the antipodes. My companion is the legendary John Cleese, a man who has been making me laugh hysterically for 53 years.

Eric Idle: the BBC paid us £2,000 a series for Python

The actor and musician pays tax in three countries but doesn't vote in any of them, but he has never regretted leaving London for sunny Los Angeles.

Eric Idle interview

Monty Python's Eric Idle on travelling with John Cleese, improv with Stephen Hawking - and the best book never written.

John Cleese and Eric Idle's excellent Florida adventure

In October, Eric Idle hits the highway again, this time with fellow Monty Python icon John Cleese, on a tour that begins with 11 shows in Florida. They will travel by car, which will allow them to sneak up on unsuspecting locals.

Eric Idle pens a new novel

Eric Idle has written a new novel, which will be released as a e-book next month. The Writer's Cut is described as 'a wicked, enthralling comedy' about a joke writer whose career has stalled - until he decides to write a novel.

Eric Idle: The diary of a legend

I noticed that with Python we used to be icons but this year it appears we have become legends. So I have decided to keep a diary which wrestles with the intimate problems of being a legend.

Prince Charles asked Eric Idle to be his jester

Not long ago, at Billy Connolly's house in Scotland, Prince Charles gave Eric Idle offer he could refuse. "He said, 'Would you be my jester?' " Idle recalled. "I said, 'Why would I want a fucking shit job like that?'"