The full Monty... why Eric Idle is happy to revisit his Python past

At the height of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Eric Idle made a promise to himself.

When the performers went their separate ways in 1983, and when the Ministry of Silly Walks had been closed for good, he would in the spirit of the show prepare to do something completely different. As it turned out, things didn't quite work out that way.

He did try for a while to shake off the Python legacy, but wherever he went there was always someone ready to ambush him with one of its many catchphrases or plead with him to do the "Nudge Nudge" sketch just one more time. In the end he gave up.

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"In the late '70s I think we all wanted to escape into the shadows for a bit," says Idle, now 67 and blessed with the healthy glow that comes from having lived in California for the last 20 years. "As the show drew to a close, of course we all wondered what the future held. It had been such a big part of our lives, but I suddenly became aware of how difficult it was going to be to break away from it.

"In the early 1980s, I ran off to France, but that didn't help. While I was out there, Monty Python and the Meaning of Life won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, which well and truly blew my cover. I'd been happy as the eccentric British guy on holiday, but then everyone started asking for autographs again.

"At that point, I realised Python wasn't something I was going to be able to put to one side, so I thought I might as well embrace it."

Having reconciled his name always being mentioned alongside Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, Idle was never short of work and quickly acquired an eclectic CV. There was his own sketch show, Rutland Weekend Television, a lead role in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado at the Royal Opera House and he earned decent reviews for his roles in films from Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen to Casper. There were also some less wise choices and shortly after Burn Hollywood Burn, in which he played a beleaguered director trying to take on Hollywood, won an award for worst picture of 1997, Idle went back to doing what he has always done best, writing.

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While the other Pythons had collaborated on sketches, Idle had always preferred his own company when it came to refining the kind of one liners and the songs for which he was best known. For a while he had toyed with an idea for a musical "lovingly ripped off" from the Holy Grail and, free from other commitments, he went back to the drawing board.

"I could feel I was being pushed down the film route," he says. "It would have been easy to keep picking up parts here and there, but I knew it wasn't making me happy. I had always loved the feeling of a joke or a sketch you'd written when it was performed in front of a live audience. There is something very special about that, so that's what I decided to do."

This time, Idle wasn't completely flying solo. John du Prez, who had played trumpet on Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and with whom Idle had co-written The Meaning of Life's Galaxy Song, came on board and quite quickly the pair pulled together a rough draft for a show, which would eventually become Spamalot.

"John and I always seem to be singing from the same page," he says. "It's really nice having someone there whose opinion you completely trust, but in the early days of writing Spamalot I wasn't entirely sure how it would work out.

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"I always thought it might be a risk. In fact, everything I've ever done I've thought was a risk.

"With a project like this it's always going to be a bit of a rollercoaster. There have been plenty of times when I've sat back and thought, 'I think we might have cracked this' and the very next day I've had dreadful cold feet.

"But you know what? The day you're not prepared for failure is the day you stay at home and do nothing."

Idle need not have worried. Premiering in New York in 2005, Spamalot, a Pythonesque parody of the King Arthur legend, became an instant Broadway hit. Nominated for 14 Tony Awards, it won three, including Best Musical, and went on tour to Australia, New Zealand and much of Europe. It has finally arrived in Britain and Idle admits it's a slightly different production than the won which wowed American audiences.

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"On Broadway, everything costs $10m," he says, a slight US twang very much in evidence. "When people are spending a couple of hundred bucks on tickets, they expect something spectacular and it's a foolish man who doesn't give it to them.

"Since we left Broadway, we've had the chance to play around with it a little and I guess it is now more quintessentially Python than it was originally. But as well as being quite silly, it's also the story of a quest and a tale of romance between King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake and

I hope those elements lift it above the status of simple revue or panto.

"Python was an emotion-free zone, any sketch which talked even vaguely about feelings or dealt with the human experience would be shot down by Gilliam or Cleese. Women hardly featured in the show, which was fine, but when it came to Spamalot I knew we had to introduce a female character. I didn't want it to be a boys only show."

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To that end, comedian Marcus Brigstocke, who has recently taken over the role of King Arthur, is joined on stage by Emmerdale's Hayley Tamaddon.

"Each of the cast bring something new to the show. They leave the stamp of their personality on it and we can also adapt little bits to suit

them," says Idle, reaching for a piece of paper. He had seen the new cast on stage for the first time the previous night and wants to remind himself to talk to one of the actors about a particular scene.

"That's what's great about theatre, you can tweak lines or rewrite whole scenes as you go along.

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"Marcus had never sung in front of an audience before, but he's perfect. He has a natural kind of puzzled dignity which you need to play King Arthur."

Born in South Shields, Idle went to boarding school in Wolverhampton and says studying was the only way to alleviate the inevitable boredom. It also secured him a place at Cambridge University where he was invited to join the prestigious Footlights Club. It was 1964 and with Chapman and Cleese in the year above, it was, he says, a incredibly creative time to be at university.

"My generation were very lucky," he says. "We already had the Beatles and we already had the Rolling Stones, comedians came in the next wave. I guess I was in the right place at the right time.

"However, you do have to recognise, comedy is a young man's business, which is why I've enjoyed doing the musical so much. Broadway is much more suited to old people. You have to learn so many different skills to put on a musical, so the people at the top tend not to be fresh out of college. It's a place I feel very comfortable."

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While Idle is still very much involved with each new Spamalot casting, he also has another project in the pipeline. He won't give any details, except to say he's been working on it for two years, but it will probably be another three or four before it comes to fruition.

"In the business you always have to change the goal posts," he says. "There is always someone there happy to knock you down, but you just have to ignore them. The whole point is always to bite off more than you can chew. John always says, 'Eric think of something

very silly and that shall be our starting point'."

As Idle himself admits, once a Python, always a Python.

Spamalot, Leeds Grand Theatre, to July 17;

Sheffield Lyceum, September 6 to 11;

York Grand Opera House, November 22 to 27.