Pythonesque

PYTHONESQUE

Roy Smile’s MONTY PYTHON Biography

Directed By Alan Swerdlow

Starring Graham Hopkins as John Cleese, Theo Landey as Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle, Robert Fridjhon as Terry Jones and Michael Palin, and Russel Savadier as Graham Chapman.

Playwright ROY SMILES’ brilliant and irreverent history of comedy comes to a fitting climax with his ingenious and hysterically funny PYTHONESQUE. Having conjured up the spirit of The Goons in “Ying Tong – A Walk With The Goons”, and resurrected the ground-breaking satire of Beyond the Fringe and Pete and Dud in “Good Evening”, SMILES completes the trilogy in a play especially commissioned by Pieter Toerien.

PYTHONESQUE tells the story of the Oxford and Cambridge graduates John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and the previously American, Terry Gilliam, who came together in 1969 to form one of the best loved comedy troupes ever – Monty Python’s Flying Circus! (… who the hell was Monty Python anyway?) At least one of them is dead. There are only four actors on stage. Theatrical magic, a touch of genius and a lot of ingenuity is called for. And what about the women? There were women in Monty Python, whatever you may recall – the most important one being Carol Cleveland and she’s a little ticked off that you don’t remember her!

Through some brilliant pastiches of the indelibly remembered sketches, SMILES tells the story of the Pythons and delivers some wry and very funny commentary on the world we live in at the same time. Do you remember The Dead Parrot, The Lumberjack Song, Nudge-Nudge Wink-Wink, The Spanish Inquisition, The Cheese Shop and The Ministry of Silly Walks? And the films Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life? Good, because we remember them, too!

Amongst the cast of thousands (well, four, as we mentioned that before, but they are called upon to portray an awful lot of people and it’s very demanding and tiring on them as performers, but you probably don’t care about that at all, to which we say, “We quite understand”…) you will find some of this country’s most skilled and dazzling performers – Graham Hopkins (Ying Tong, Around the World in 80 Days, The 39 Steps, SABCTV’s The Lab, JEEVES & WOOSTER in Perfect Nonsense), Theo Landey (Address Unknown, Around The World in 80 Days), Robert Fridjohn (Modern Othodox, It’s A Dad Thing, WILD, Boeing Boeing, The Mousetrap, JEEVES & WOOSTER in Perfect Nonsense) and Russel Savadier (Twitch) They have accepted that their payment for their labours will probably be in tins of Spam, but they don’t mind, because they love the Pythons and think ROY SMILES is a genius. They will jump through hoops and commit death-defying acts like making the whole of Montecasino disappear (we’re lying, of course) under the direction of Alan Swerdlow (Ying Tong, Around the World in 80 Days, Good Evening, The 39 Steps, Address Unknown, Honor, Constellations) who also happens to think ROY SMILES is a comic genius. The Pythons became so influential in their style of satire and comedy that they became an adjective in the dictionary – Pythonesque – hence the title of the play. They even have a long-running musical on Broadway, “Spamalot”. For fans, this is going to be the treat of the decade, as well as the chance to introduce a whole new generation to the wild, insane, hilarious, rude, silly, inspired and uncompromisingly funny world of Monty Python!

PYTHONESQUE

Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre

17 April to 17 May 2015

Performances:  Tue – Fri @ 8pm, Sat @ 5pm & 8pm, Sun @ 3pm

Tickets: R170, R130 & R100