Onyx reviews: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 09/23/2018

Monty Python's Eric Idle, a multihyphenate (comedian, actor, author, singer, playwright, director and songwriter), calls his latest book a "sortabiography," an apt description for his breezy account of what appears to an outsider to be an amazing life.

It makes sense he would name his memoir after the cheeky song that was used at the end of Life of Brian. That jaunty tune has effectively become the theme song for Idle's life, appearing in numerous films and becoming, apparently, the number one song played at funerals in the UK. He has performed it in a dizzying number of venues, from Prince Charles' sixtieth birthday (wearing a tutu) to the London Olympics closing ceremonies to a tribute to director Mike Nichols, where he upstaged Simon & Garfunkel. He's even sung it in Japanese on Japanese TV, learning the translation phonetically.

"I have met many people in my life and, sadly, many of them were not famous. I agree it's not their fault, though they might have tried harder," Idle writes at the beginning of Chapter 20. Calling Idle a name-dropper would be unfair. He became friends with celebrities like George Harrison (who mortgaged his house to finance The Life of Brian), David Bowie, ELO's Jeff Lynne, and Robin Williams and had more than a passing relationship with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, Stephen Hawking and Professor Brian Fox, Steve Martin, Carrie Fisher, and Paul Simon. Prince Charles dropped in at comedian Billy Connelly's house and asked Idle to become his jester. He claims he made Queen Elizabeth laugh out loud when he performed at The Royal Variety Show.

The book is frequently hilarious, and generally humorous, although Idle does sometimes try too hard by relating occasions where he dropped the perfect "bon mot" during a conversation, although he generously praises his colleagues when they did something similar. The unusual aspect of his rise to fame (if not fortune—for all his celebrity, he says the first time he had serious money was after Spamalot began its highly successful run) is that it originates with a television program that wasn't particularly special at the time. For Idle and his co-stars on Monty Python's Flying Circus, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, it was just another gig, one of many sketch comedies they were doing in various configurations in the late sixties. They were relegated to a dead spot on BBC's late-night schedule and were generally ignored and allowed to do whatever they wanted.

They didn't realize how famous they had become, though, until their first tour of Canada, where they were greeted by screaming fans at the airport. The Pythons understood that what they wrote was more important than how well they acted. The material spoke for itself, which was why instances where two or more Pythons were hired to appear in movies or TV programs weren't always as successful. The Pythons weren't writing the material in those cases.

The 2014 Python reunion at London's O2, where they appeared for several nights and ended with a worldwide simulcast, happened because they were all deeply in debt after fending off a suit related to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, launched by a producer of the movie who wanted to be acknowledged as the "seventh Python." A promoter told them they would be able to earn enough to pay their lawyer bills in a single appearance at the massive venue.

This isn't a tell-all expose, but Idle doesn't shy away from revealing his shortcomings, especially pertaining to his short-lived first marriage, which was destroyed by his rampant infidelity in the wake of superstardom. Little dirt is spilled about his friends and colleagues, although he does detail Graham Chapman's antics, many of them self-destructive, and their agony at his death, as well as those of other friends, including Robin Williams.

At 300 pages, this feels like a slight volume. Readers might have hoped for a deeper dive into the creation of famous Python sketches or the filming of their movies. Idle spends more time discussing the creation of the Beatles-parody band The Rutles than he does on The Holy Grail. Much of his humor is self-deprecating ("I think all the Pythons are nuts in some way, and together we make one completely insane person.") or couched in that oddball way the Pythons had of describing the world. As Idle says at the beginning of a chapter titled "And Now for Something Slightly Completely Different," there are probably more hours of documentary about Python than there are hours of Python. Several other Pythons have written memoirs that discuss that troup of actor-comedians. It was time for Idle to have his say before he came down with "hamnesia," an affliction that affects aging actors.