Saturday, April 28, 2007

Monty Python Divided Over Work

Michael Palin writes this entry in his diary (December 31, 1971) about differences in the Monty Python Team over their attitudes to work:

“The split between John [Cleese] and Eric [Idle] and the rest of us has grown a little recently. It doesn’t prevent us all from sharing—and enjoying sharing—most of out attitudes, except for attitudes to work. It’s the usual story—John and Eric see Monty Python as a means to an end—money to buy freedom from work. Terry J [Jones] is completely the opposite and feels that Python is an end in itself—i.e. work which he enjoys doing and which keeps him from the dangerous world of leisure. In between are Graham [Chapman] and myself.”

Michael Palin Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, 65.

Image: The Python Team