Monty Python’s Eric Idle, 82, on Spamalot return, losing friends and love for comedy
Eric Idle discusses Spamalot’s return to LA, his love for comedy and why being part of the Monty Python troupe ‘doesn’t make you brothers’
The last time Eric Idle’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail spoof musical Spamalot landed at a major Los Angeles venue a decade ago, he played the show’s tweedy historian, who sets the scene for the Arthurian legend with a seriousness entirely unfit for the absurdist romp to follow.
It was a perfect role for the Monty Python’s Flying Circus alum, to whom dry humour comes as naturally as breathing.
But when Spamalot made its long-awaited return to LA on March 24 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, Idle took the stage only briefly, and not as a cast member. His job was to pop on and “say something funny or rude, which sadly, comes quite easy to me,” he says in a recent interview at a cocktail lounge just north of the theatre.
Explaining his scaled-back involvement in this iteration of his meta-musical, Idle says that at the golden age of 82, “I can’t do anything eight times a week” – though his agenda that day begged to differ.
He had woken up around 6am for his daily writing session, powered through a meeting with his book publisher and capped off the sunlight hours with some Spamalot promos and a photo shoot, all before sitting down to dinner.