3:5
I'd got about halfway through this one thinking it was below par, but it picks up nicely after that. There's an overlong sketch about the Fire Brigade in the first half that's pleasingly, very imaginatively surreal without being overly funny. Graham Chapman appears blacked up in full tribal dress in this one, doing a comedy West Indian accent.
I don't remember ever having seen this episode though I think I must have. But lots of the material from the latter half is familiar from the albums - especially a dialogue between Idle and Palin, in which Idle plays someone who can't say the letter C, and substitutes B instead. The line "What a silly bunt", present on the Live at Drury Lane version is not present here. Idle goes into a long, ranting monologue about package holidays and Watney's Red Barrel, again fondly remembered from the live album. Must have taken him weeks to memorise. Classic Eric Idle material.
I think the closing piece, regarding Anne Elk's theory on brontosauruses, is also present on one of the albums. Certainly I remembered that one very well.
I'd got about halfway through this one thinking it was below par, but it picks up nicely after that. There's an overlong sketch about the Fire Brigade in the first half that's pleasingly, very imaginatively surreal without being overly funny. Graham Chapman appears blacked up in full tribal dress in this one, doing a comedy West Indian accent.
I don't remember ever having seen this episode though I think I must have. But lots of the material from the latter half is familiar from the albums - especially a dialogue between Idle and Palin, in which Idle plays someone who can't say the letter C, and substitutes B instead. The line "What a silly bunt", present on the Live at Drury Lane version is not present here. Idle goes into a long, ranting monologue about package holidays and Watney's Red Barrel, again fondly remembered from the live album. Must have taken him weeks to memorise. Classic Eric Idle material.
I think the closing piece, regarding Anne Elk's theory on brontosauruses, is also present on one of the albums. Certainly I remembered that one very well.