Not the Messiah

An absolute MUST for all Python Fans.................
At the outset, I must admit that my view on this piece may be slightly prejudiced seeing as I was fortunate enough to have been in attendance at the Royal Albert Hall that wonderful night and saw this live.

Having been there and having seen this already, and that as a Python fan since 1973, I can not imagine not having this in my DVD library.

The sad truth is that it is rare for these amazing and gifted performers to get together at all as time goes on and since they are all in their late 60's (at best) future reunions are not quite bloody likely, so gang let's enjoy them while they are here. The only regrettable thing is that the great John Cleese chose not to participate in the grand evening.

The concert performance of HE'S NOT THE MESSIAH, HE'S A VERY NAUGHTY BOY is quite fun. Written by Eric Idle and Jon Du Prez (One Foot in the Grave) and accompanied by a rather impressive choir and the BBC orchestra is a adrenaline shot that most of us...

And now for a completely different opinion
Apparently I am the lone Python fan here who was not only less than thrilled by this show, but almost bored silly.

My MP credentials had me ready for hilarity: I've seen Brian dozens of times since the week it came out and know it pretty much word for word; love the Pythons in general, have seen all the tv shows many times and all the movies many times; have all the records and most all the '70s books, even the rare ones that only Cleese's Mum ever read; love their sense of humor in general and consider them some of the funniest and most literate of all comedians. So, you know, I was well disposed to liking this.

But, at the risk of being a heretic like Brian, and attacked for not agreeing with the herd here ("Stone him! Stone him!!"), I found Not The Messiah to be Not The Greatest, and possibly Yes The Worst Of All (Ever-Increasing In Number) Tertiarily Semi-Pythonic, Sadly Ironic, Somewhat Related, Eric Idleberg-hatched Further Chances To Milk The Python...

Prelude to greatness
When it comes to "behind the scenes" material about a live production, you can't get any better than this short piece about the week leading up to the performance of "Not the Messiah" to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the "Monty Python" TV series. I really appreciated seeing short insights into the casting of the solo roles and the composition of some of the pieces, the amount of rehearsal it took, as well as hearing their un-polished thoughts on the entire rehearsal process. Composer John Du Prez's words about the musical choices are golden; I only wish that more focus had been placed on it. In fact, for a true Python geek or classical music geek, there probably should have been an entirely separate video about how the songs were composed and perhaps a different video on the first performance in Toronto.

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