Customer Reviews

Monty Python Live at Drury Lane

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Okay, Python made everything funny. Best show ever? Absolutley. But when it comes down to the Drury Lane album, the performances and recording in general can be much improved. For instance:
1. The Introduction is hardly funny. It sounds ad-libbed.
2. Gumby Flower Arranging and Coctail Bar really need to be visual. (The Coctail Bar was filmed for a third season episode of Python, but cencored with half of the rest of the episode.)
3. Why they have the German Episode sketch 'Wrestling' on the album, makes no sense. With this time they could have had more of the edited 'Election Night Special' in it's entirety. That exits on a flexidisc called 'Monty Python's Tiny Black Round Thing' also with a complete Lumberjack Song.
4. Not only are there Pepperpots on the back cover, who do not appear on the album, but the Argument Clinic sketch is called 'Argument Song'.
5. The Argument SKETCH starts even later in than the Travel Agent and has been clearly edited by the appluase.
6. Lastly, it's a shame that the classic 'Fairy Tale' sketch was performed at Drury Lane but not included on the album.
7. The performences here are kinda below par, and are much more well-performed on City Centre and the studio albums (not to mention the TV show.)
8. There are several topical jokes, most of which people won't get now, unless you are a huge Python fan (like myself.)

Some good points about the album are that the 'Dead Parrot' sketch has a new ending, a different one than the other 15 or so versions. The albums clocks over an hour!, and it's Python so why not have a listen?

Drury Lane, despite a couple of faults, has pretty much gone down as a classic of the Pythons back catalague. With a live attack that at times seems a little unpolished but still bitingly funny the album has a range of classic sketches such as Travel Agent, Parrot Sketch, the Lumberjack Song, Four Yorkshiremen and Nudge, Nudge. Plus a whole host of other excellent material.

Sure, it could be claimed that some of this would of worked better as a visual release, after all seeing Graham Chapman wrestle himself is far funnier than just hearing John Cleese commentate on it, but as an early live document of this hugely influential comedy troupe it's hard to find too many major faults with this, and given it is the earliest official live recording it has some historical value as well.

One of my rare full five stars. And yes, once upon a time I could of probably recited the whole thing. Cos I'm sad....

This is to some extent redundant now, with video's and DVDs of the television programmes available, but when first issued in the 1970s it was a must-have for Python fans. Albums of comedy material from films, stage shows, or made specially (even occasional television recordings) were the only way we could re-live those classic television sketches. This edition is notable because the performances are much louder, swearier, and hammier than those on television, particularly in the case of John Cleese. So the voltage of The Parrot Sketch is increased, and Nudge Nudge has a few additions, but basically the material is the same as that re-used on albums and the first Monty Python film, Now For Something Completely Different. The musical numbers come out particularly well here, though, especially Neil Innes's Idiot Song. Even if you have the video's, buy it to re-live those childhood days where you knew every word of the Communist quiz, or to play in the car when you need cheering up.

Monty Python's Flying Circus introduced American audiences to the delights of British humour. Let's face it, we don't much expect the staid British to be witty, but this group of Cambridge students made their mark with their sometimes sublime, often outrageous humo(u)r (rather interesting that British comedians have such a high level of education-Rowan Atkinson went to Oxford). This CD delivers many of Monty Python's greatest skits and songs, including the parrot skitch (funny as heck without being off color), a satirical takeoff of British election returns (with Enoch Powell losing his parlimentary seat to an immigrant. You have to know something about British politics to understand that one), a song mocking Australians as drunkards named Bruce (with many a reference to famous philosophers) and that all time classic, 'The Lumberjack Song', about transvestite Canadian lumberjacks. Those lyrics are so outrageously funny and I spent many nights trying to memorize them instead of studying for school. I guess Parker and Stone got their inspiration for insulting Canada from Monty Python.

The only thing missing from this collection are the twits and the cannibals, but this is an audio CD and those sketches are more visual in nature. All we need for this CD is the audience in Drury Lane to riot, only to stand to attention to the melodious strains of 'God Save the Queen', but we can't have everything!

This is another funny cd with Monty Python. Its got famous skits and its sure to be something the whole family can enjoy. This gets my famous 5 star award.

This was released back in 1974, close to the time when Cleese left the Python team. This event may have happened before or after, but there's certainly a lot of emotional tension being released in Cleese's 'outburst' style of sketch delivery. Listeners familiar only with the BBC-vetted TV broadcasts may be in for a surprise when they hear the quips added on to each sketch, many of the four-letter variety. These add-ons lend the show an intimacy, a sense of a historic never-to-be-repeated experience.

Only that's not true: the Pythons did take their show on the road. The US equivalent of the Drury Lane record was the 'Live at City Center' album. It was never released in the UK, presumably because its material was similar to 'Drury Lane'.

The crowning glory of that album was Neil Innes' Bob Dylan impression -- "I've suffered for my music -- now it's your turn." On this album, Innes plays a tune from his then current LP, 'How Sweet of Be an Idiot', a Beatles spoof that sowed the seed for Eric Idle's 'Rutles'.

But at the core of this album are the classic Python dialogue sketches -- "Nudge-Nudge", 'Lumberjack Song", "World Forum" and the "Parrot Sketch". In fact, in those pre-video days, this album helped define the classics, because LP and cassette tape were the only ways we had of repeating the Python experience again and again.

There are heaps of references to UK things of the 1970s -- such as Timothy Whites (a chain of chemists) and Breakaway (a chocolate bar that Idle had done some TV ads for and, I assume, was never again asked to do). That might be a negative for US listeners, or you might regard it as a self-education opportunity if you're taking a degree in 1970s English culture.

One negative for nearly everyone is the varying sound quality -- members of the team frequently stray from the microphone, and no amount of remastering can make up for that. But this production amateurishness almost adds to the intimacy of the occasion.

The sketch selection is nicely democratic: Palin/Jones wrote 'World Forum', Idle 'Nudge Nudge' and 'The Travel Agent' and Cleese/Chapman 'The Parrot Sketch'. As a schoolboy I used to know their sketches off by heart. But they can still extract a laugh from me, even if now, I'm more interested in how and why they wrote the material.

This is the classic Python Live album -- the material in the 'Live at City Center' LP has been rather too self-consciously edited for the US market, and the performers were not entirely at home in delivering the new lines.