<
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/oct/03/i-didnt-cry-until-i-knew-i-was-going-to-live-monty-pythons-eric-idle-on-surviving-pancreatic-cancer>
"Eric Idle is a survivor. We’ve known that for decades. After all, it’s 53
years since Monty Python formed, and the bunch of absurdist jokers are still
regarded as the Beatles of comedy. But it was only last week that we discovered
what a survivor he is. Idle revealed that three years ago he was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer, and that he has come through it. His medical team has
now told him that thanks to early diagnosis and surgery, he’s likely to be
around for the foreseeable.
Idle has always loved his ironies. And none come bigger than this, he says.
About 15 years ago, he started working on a project. Death: The Musical became
his obsession, even though countless people told him it didn’t work and would
never get made. (It hasn’t been.) The basic plot was simple – a man writing
Death: The Musical finds he is dying. Idle asked his doctor for advice. “I
said: ‘What’s the quickest way to get rid of a character?’ and he said:
‘Pancreatic cancer.’ This is the same doctor who ended up diagnosing me. That
was the
fucking plot! So I had to laugh. And when it’s on yourself it’s even
funnier.”
Did he really respond with laughter or did the tears come first? “No, I didn’t
cry till I knew I was going to live. I just got on with it. I’m British! You
try not to show emotions in the face of danger.”
Idle, 79, has lived in Los Angeles for decades, but few understand Britishness
like him. Upper-class twits, deadly bureaucrats, oleaginous salesmen, pedantic
bores, establishment perverts, heroic stoics, Panglossian optimists: Python
gave all these British stereotypes a surreal twist. One of Idle’s most
memorable sketches is Nudge Nudge, in which he asks a stranger in a pub about
his sex life via a series of terrible double entendres. It’s one of the few
Python sketches with a punchline, and was apparently Elvis Presley’s
favourite."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
