Monty Python at 57
The first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was broadcast on Sunday 5th October at 10.55pm on BBC1. It was the last programme before the weather and close down for the night.
The first episode was available on the BBC website and I’ve watched it a couple of times.
As a North London teenager I of course watched the first and subsequent episodes. The Flett household, like I suspect many other Muswell Hill households in the late 1960s, was not one that went to bed early.
Looking at it again I tend to think that its now more social history than humour but on a second viewing I’d also note that much of the humour was very clever.
Monty Python emerged into a world that is just about familiar to us but had quite recently been different. Homosexuality had been legalised in 1967, Abortion was partially legalised in 1968 and hanging finally abolished in 1969.
The world of Python, with Gillam’s graphics, was anti-authoritarian and very much not of the Britain of the 1950s.
The first episode is notable for several sketches, which seem very relevant now, where interviewers talking to people in the public eye were far more interested in their own obsessions than what the interviewee had to say.
There is also an extended sketch about the world’s funniest joke which kills people if they read it. In this case it leads to a Second World War, Nazis ending. However the war had only ended 24 years previously and for context its worth keeping in mind that the Iraq War was 23 years ago. The underlying point about the impact of humour is actually quite profound.
Students of facial hair will note that all the Pythons sported sideburns.
Would such a programme be commissioned and air on TV now? It probably would but on BBC1 even in a less than prime time Sunday evening slot? That would be rather less likely I suspect.
We talked about the Pythons at school the following day. I’m not sure TV in the main has that impact now except of course for The Traitors.
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