Story highlights
Monty Python reunion show in London on July 1 sells out in 43.5 seconds
More shows announced for July 2-5; tickets priced between £27 ($43) and £90 ($145)
Monty Python team produced 45 TV episodes and five films between 1969 and 1983
Tickets for the Monty Python reunion performance went on sale on Monday for as little as £32 ($51), sold out in 43 seconds and promptly resurfaced on the auction site eBay for £750 ($1212). As one of Eric Idle’s characters says in the movie, “The Life of Brian:” “We’re supposed to haggle!”
After tickets for the show at London’s O2 Arena on July 1 sold out, the PR agency for the event announced more shows on July 2-5. The performance will be the five surviving stars’ first show on stage together since appearing at the Hollywood Bowl in September 1980.
Tickets are priced from £32 to £106 ($171) including booking fees, with full details announced on the troupe’s website montyphythonlive.com. Hours after they went on sale, many tickets were on sale on eBay.
Idle tweeted: “This pretty much took us by surprise, so we are talking about adding more shows.”
Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and the late Graham Chapman became comedic legends with the creation of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in October 1969. They produced 45 TV episodes for the BBC and five films together before going their separate ways in 1983.
The shows mostly consisted of a string of often incoherent sketches, only occasionally with conventional punch lines and loosely tied together by Gilliam’s stream of consciousness animations.
Although the TV show ran for only four seasons, it proved a massive cult hit when it was shown in the United States beginning in 1974 – just as the show was winding up on the other side of the Atlantic.
Cleese said at a news conference on Thursday that the show will have some new material, but many old bits – some featured in new ways – that fans will expect, along with “comedy, pathos, music and a tiny bit of ancient sex.”
“I remember going to the Royal Albert Hall and seeing Neil Diamond where he got booed in the second half for singing new numbers. People really do want to see the old hits, but we don’t want to do them exactly in a predictable way, so it’s going to be a mix-up, I think,” Cleese added.
Asked what he believes the modern twist will be, Gilliam replied: “The fact that we can actually still walk and stand upright.”
While the Python stars said they hoped the new performance will appeal to a new generation of fans, they admitted that money was one of the main factors in their decision to reform.
“I hope it makes us a lot of money. I hope to be able to pay off my mortgage!” Jones said.
READ: Monty Python returns, promising ‘comedy, music, ancient sex’