Week 5

Week 5

• Paper 1: The Guardian

The story that I am looking at in the The Guardian this week is "Graham Chapman and me". The article's author is Ken Levy. The atricle holds Levy's recollection of how "a chance to encounter backstage led to an unlikely friendship". 

Monty Python are are a British comedy group that created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that aired on the BBC almost 50 years ago! The Python phenomenon launched the members to individual stardom, and developed from the television series into touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.

Ken Levy was a fledging reporter for his university's newspaper in the year of '76. He went to see Monty Python live at New York's City Centre and talked his way backstage, hours ahead of showtime. He was lead through a maze of dressing rooms to the great Graham Chapman himself, who - Levy reports - "greeted me affably and invited me to sit while he prepared for the evening's first skit". 

Levy spoke with Chapman during the breaks in the show and then again few days later when he met him at his hotel to conduct a longer interview. Levy writes, "He was softly spoken, down to earth, yet incredibly idiosyncratic and, well Pythonesque. I was dumbstruck when he offered his phone number with the suggestion to 'ring us up if you're ever in London' "

In the summer of '76, Levy travelled to London and was invited to visit Graham in Highgate, North London. Levy, Chapman and his partner David Sherlock chatted about politics and the couple's recent holiday over red wine and homemade moussaka. Levy was invited to stay the night and from there, the unlikely start to a years-long friendship with Graham, David and John Cleese began. Once Levy returned to the USA the two fell out of touch. Levy heard that Clapman fell ill with throat cancer and passed away very quickly in 1989 at 48. 

To end, Levy quotes a note he once saw in Chapman's office, that was written in the graet comedian's hand. The note read, "When I get upset I have a tendency to bit scaffolding which is bad as I've already had three teeth capped this week".

• Paper 2: Daily Mail 

The story that I am looking at in the Daily Mail this week is "And now for something completely shameless". This article is by Sam Creighton and is about the lauch of Monty Python's farewell show.

The show was lauched on Monday, 30^th June. The survivng Pythons now in their seventies have hired 20 dancers - ten male and ten female, all of whom are young enough to be their grandchildren. The show has a ten-date run at London's O2. The routines are based around their many sketches, such as their 1970 sketch "Blackmail". 

John Cleese (74), Terry Gilliam (73), Terry Jones (72), Eric Idle (71) and Michael Palin (71) star in the £4.5million show, which features appearances by Professors Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox. The Pythons will also show a video of Sir Mick Jagger (70), discussing the production wih Rolling Stones bandmate Charlie Watts (73), saying ironically: "It's a bunch of wrinkly old men trying to make a load of money."

• In Conclusion...

I feel that the article in The Guardian gave a very one-sided view of the Pythons whereas the Daily Mail's article gave an all-rounded view of the group. However, Sir Mick Jagger's comment was - in my opinion - quite rude, I can't comment on whether that was intentional.

As The Guardian is more of a politically based newspaper, I didn't expect them to have a double spread on the matter as I felt that, as the Daily Mail has more of a more formal, chattier tone, it would be the one with the longer article, not just a couple of paragraphs squished in at the right-hand corner of a page.