Comic legend to raise a laugh in San Francisco

  • 2024-08-15
A man who helped raise silliness to an art form is coming to San Francisco.

Eric Idle may be best known to American audiences as one of the members of the outrageous comedy troupe “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” but his career spans not only television but stage, screen, and radio.

Idle was born in County Durham in the UK, and attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, which granted him a B.A. in English Literature in 1965. In college he was President of The Footlights Dramatic Club, which performed “My Girl Herbert” in London. He was at the Leicester Rep for a season before returning to London, where he appeared in two TV movies for the BBC. He also began his professional career writing for BBC Radio.

Everything changed in 1968 when he, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Michael Palen acted in two series of “Do Not Adjust Your Set,” a children’s TV program. This was the birth of the famous “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” which featured the same actors, with the addition of Graham Chapman and John Cleese. The Python phenomenon spawned several films, and a musical, “Spamalot,” which won a Tony in 2005.

Idle has appeared in numerous films, and is a best-selling author. He will be at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts on September 6 with his “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live!” tour. When performances like this are booked, organizers often use poster printing to create effective advertising for them.