And now for something completely different. Thirty years after the death of Monty Python star Graham Chapman, his surviving comedy partners have announced a rumour of plans for a new feature film, directed by Terry Jones and scheduled for release in October.
Monty Python’s ‘Life Of Boris’ has a script almost certainly written by all five surviving members of the classic 70s comedy team in close collaboration. It tells the story of a boy born in New York to wealthy parents who grows up to become a politician and screws up an entire country.
“We’re probably working very closely together on this one,” Jones said in a joint press conference.
“This is a story that needs telling. We couldn’t decide whether to make it Boris or Nigel, and we actually wrote both versions simultaneously before deciding on Boris, because it is just that shade lighter in tone. And while even this has some dark moments, you need the contrast of both to show it off.”
The script stars Boris, a Norman Bates-like figure who goes around with a dead parrot in a cage, which he calls Brexit, and insists is alive, even going so far as to put his ear to it repeatedly to “listen” to it, and then saying out loud what he thinks it is saying.
Eric Idle is almost collaborating with singer Sting on adapting the latter’s hit “Englishman In New York” for the title character’s theme.
“I hadn’t planned it this way,” Idle explained, “but this song came on the radio one day and I thought, it’s the perfect starting point. I asked Sting if I could do this and he even offered to help.”
Fans need not worry though, the classic Python number “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” will probably be putting in an appearance at the end of the film, to be sung by the character Jeremiah Corbius, leader of the suicide cult Momentum.
Other characters include David Cameron as Pontius Pilate and Theresa May as Judith Iscariot.
John Cleese, who was Graham Chapman’s writing partner in the original series, added:
“We’ve always wanted to do one last hurrah in Graham’s memory but somehow it never quite seemed right, and we were getting rather worried that our metabolic processes would only be a matter of interest to historians before the right thing came along, but when Boris happened we all got this vibe, we knew this was the one.”
Monty Python’s Life Of Boris could be in cinemas on the 4th of October.