Monty Python

And now for something completely familiar...

The Independent talks to the predictably anarchic Pythons in Manhattan.

Monty Python and the cardboard cut-out

Their waistlines have expanded along with the alimony payments, but 40 years after their television debut, the surviving members of the Monty Python crew were reunited on stage.

In praise of... Monty Python's Flying Circus

"I'll give you 13 shows, but that's all," said the BBC's head of light entertainment in 1969, and Monty Python's Flying Circus aired to a perplexed, but eventually grateful, British audience on Monday 5 October that same year.

Is Monty Python's Flying Circus dead as a parrot?

The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus was broadcast 40 years ago today. John Walsh dusts off the tapes to see if the old ones really are the best.

Forty years ago this week, Nixon was withdrawing troops from Vietnam, Je T'Aime topped the charts and Concorde broke the sound barrier. And then for something completely different: the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus aired on BBC One. We never looked at comedy - let alone Spam, parrots or lumberjacks - in the same way again. This new film celebrates the anarchic troupe's Ruby Jubilee and marks the first time the surviving Pythons have come together for a project since 1983's The Meaning of Life. It's archly subtitled The Lawyer's Cut and those Beeb briefs have been busy because it's slimmed down from a six-hour series screened in the US (as Terry Jones says, "a record so complete and faithful to the truth that I don't need to watch it") to just 60 minutes. Directed by Alan Parker, it features new interviews with Jones, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Eric Idle, as well as archive chat from the late Graham Chapman. All tell the story of how they met at Oxbridge and The Frost Report, created trailblazing television, made the transition into films and ultimately became a British institution. Which, like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expected.

The Monty Python Revolution

First broadcast 40 years ago this week, Monty Python's Flying Circus broke all the rules of comedy - and we loved it. But is it still funny today?

Bafta honour for Monty Python stars

The Monty Python stars are to be honoured with a special award from the British Academy of Film and Television (Bafta) to mark their contribution to comedy over 40 years, it emerged today.

Monty Python theme tune: music to madness

How music contributed to Monty Python's demented humour.

Monty Python almost pulled during first series

Monty Python's Flying Circus was almost taken off the air for its "disgusting and nihilistic" humour, according to newly-released files.

As proven by this amiable documentary, hallowed practitioners of the musical spoof include acts as diverse as Bill Bailey, The Two Ronnies, Tom Lehrer, Monty Python and Victoria Wood, who's breathlessly funny Let's Do It is one of the greatest comedy songs ever written, and I'll mud-wrestle anyone who says otherwise.

All of which poses the question: why can't all channels be as good as this?