by Steve Evans
September 12, 2024, updated September 16
When Eric Idle arrives in Australia, his fans need to limber up their tonsils and freshen up their memories.
He promises a rendition of the classic song he wrote, and he expects the audience to join in and maybe stand and sway a little.
The classic is, of course, Always look on the bright side of life.
It was written as the darkest of gallows humour, sung by Idle himself as he was crucified at the end of the great Monty Python film, Life of Brian, released in 1979 and enduring as a classic ever since.
"It will close the show," the eternal Monty Python star says. And when it has closed the show in the past, he found that the audience joined in. How could they not?
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| 'I've always loved Australia,' Idle says. Picture supplied |
Indeed, the title of the tour is Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live. It opens in Hobart on October 31 and gets to Canberra's Llewellyn Hall on the following Saturday, November 2. From there it goes on to Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney, Perth and finally Adelaide.
None of the venues will quite compete with the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics when Idle performed it in front of 80,000 people plus a mega-million TV audience.
He was part of a cast of 550 people, including roller-blading nuns and dancing centurions. He has also performed it at the Sydney Opera House and New York's classical music mecca, Carnegie Hall.
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| Performing at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Picture Getty Images |
He is still not tired of it, far from it. "I do love it. It's extraordinary the reach of that song," he told The Canberra Times.
In the recent soccer match where Liverpool trounced Manchester United, the Liverpool fans chanted it across to the losers to run the defeat in. Idle was watching on TV and loved the rendition. "That made me so happy," he says.
It's hard to analyse the appeal. Palin recognises an "ironic quality".
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| Monty Python in 1969, from left, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin. Picture Getty Images |
"It is ridiculously cheery, and it is ironic to be singing 'Look on the bright side of life' when you are being crucified."
It's a parody of that alleged British stiff-upper-lip tendency. It was, apparently, the most played song at British funerals (and maybe still is).
It is gallows humour at its best: British troops who had just escaped from a sinking warship apparently sung it together on a life-boat.
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| Always looking on the bright side of life. Picture supplied |
He also thinks it's a bit like those wartime nostalgia songs, yearning for a better day in a dark time.
Now in his early 80s, the creator (jointly of Monty Python and solely of the song) remains an optimist - sort of. He has, after all, survived pancreatic cancer (for which he now raises money and awareness).
He said he was optimistic in the morning and pessimistic at night. In the morning, he said he was optimistic because "today can't be as bad as yesterday".
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| Meeting Prince Harry backstage after a charity performance in London in 2008. Picture Getty Images (Tony Magee adds: In the background L-R: Andrew Sachs, Joan Rivers, Robin Williams) |
Certainly, talking to him you don't get a sense of great gloom behind the smile which some comics exude.
At the age of 81, he remains creative and enthusiastic about creating.
There's more to him than that classic song and being part of the legendary Monty Python comedic revolution.
The Pythons (Idle, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin) created five films.
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| Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Jones in 2012. Picture Getty Images |
Idle created the musical Spamalot. He also appeared in Shrek The Third.
And he created The Rutles as a comic pastiche of the Beatles (which apparently the Beatles came to like - and Eric Idle was a genuine friend of George Harrison).
There may well be a lot of this creativity in the Australian shows. Idle describes them as one-man musicals - there is a band but it's on screen.
The promo material calls it: "A nostalgic one-man musical reflecting his love of comedy, music, life and what he calls 'mock and roll', a weird hybrid of comedy and music, with tributes to George Harrison and Robin Williams and a salute to The Rutles."
Talking to Eric Idle is refreshing. Some stars have nicey-nice masks for the public and are foul when the microphones are off. Eric Idle didn't come over that way.
So why is he doing the tour of Australia now?
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| With Catherine Zeta Jones in Dublin in 1993. Picture Getty Images |
Firstly, he likes Australia.
"I've always loved Australia," he said. "I've been coming since 1976. I think it's one of the nicest places in the world. I would have loved to live there. It makes me happy."
His first wife was Australian.
And he is clearly driven to keep working. He said he wakes up before 5am and picks up where he left off the day before with his guitar.
And there is the money.
He Tweeted recently: "I don't know why people always assume we're loaded. Python is a disaster.
"I never dreamed that at this age the income streams would tail off so disastrously."
There has been litigation over who owns what - and litigation doesn't come cheap.
But he concluded: "I don't mind not being wealthy. I prefer being funny."
And funny he certainly is - and poignant and serious, too.
You get the sense talking to him that he's not really driven by money but driven to create. "I'm fine. I'm engaged and writing. It's the thing I do and like the most. Creating a new show.
Something that feels so completely normal."
And there is that song:
"When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And .....
Always look on the bright side of life."
Learn it. You may need it when the show rolls into town.
Eric Idle is performing Always Look On The Bright Side of Life - Live at Llewellyn Hall on November 2.
First published in The Canberra Times, September 14, 2024
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