The five surviving members of the British comedy troupe joined host John Oliver for a panel discussion and screening of The Holy Grail during Tribeca film festival

The five surviving members of the famed British comedy troupe Monty Python – Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam – do not get along. On stage at the Beacon Theater on Friday night, two members walked off in the middle of a discussion. Others rearranged chairs so as not to have to face one another or the audience, while host John Oliver struggled to keep control of men who, he said, “always had a fundamental disrespect for authority”.

Or, at least, the Pythons suggested that such would be the story if the Daily Mail wrote it up.

“The British press write this stuff about everyone, not just about us,” Cleese told reporters on Friday before the 40th anniversary screening of The Holy Grail at the Tribeca Film Festival and a slightly madcap panel discussion that left the audience and Oliver in stitches.

“I think it’s because something like the Daily Mail, which is my pet hate, operates on trying to make people anxious and slightly depressed because that’s how they sell more copy.”

He concluded: “They don’t want people to be happy, and we made a lot of people [happy] and they made us happy.”

“So you can see that we hate the Daily Mail slightly more than we hate each other,” added Palin.

Gilliam said it was all down to a difference in how things are perceived today. “We used to always take the piss out of each other in public and everybody would laugh,” he said. “They knew it was that. And now it’s no longer funny to people: ‘Oh, it’s serious and real.’”

“Serious” is certainly something that, when put together, none of the Pythons can apparently be for very long. It didn’t take 10 minutes of discussion for Cleese to stalk off the stage, to the bemusement of Idle, only to return to goof off behind the backdrop in a way only the audience would notice. He eventually returned with an extra chair, giving everyone the opportunity to play musical chairs, swap positions and generally befuddle Oliver, their host, who finally gave up and laughed as hard as his audience at how much control he’d lost in what would normally be a by-the-book event.

But the Pythons know what their audience is there for: to see them misbehave; to watch Cleese pretend to eat a microphone and him and Gilliam re-enact part of the tiger scene from The Meaning of Life; for fart jokes (Gilliam); and to hear the word “Ni!” (Cleese and Palin, who explained that it had its origins in a rather strange teacher from his schooldays). Even the questions from the audience, submitted to the Twitter handle @AskMontyPython, revealed an audience less interested in the origins of the group’s shtick than the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.

Cleese, Idle and Palin were the talkative members onstage, taking the piss out of one another and the tendency of the British press to exaggerate their relationships.

For instance, as Cleese explained: “They ran a story about two months ago about Micky [Palin] and me because we went to a restaurant, the same restaurant, by accident and we were sitting at different tables. And I sent Michael half a bottle of sparkling mineral water. And he sent me an ashtray.”

Palin insisted: “I sent you the salt.” Cleese agreed.



Though they jokingly bickered on stage and for reporters, it was clear that even their insults were mostly for show.

“I love these things when we get together, because it’s just fun,” Idle told reporters before the panel discussion. “I hate to say it, and I hope the Daily Mail isn’t here, but it’s really fun to see everybody.

“To go through your life and then get together for weird reasons with people you’ve known for more than 50 years is really just a lovely thing, it’s a delightful thing, and we’re very lucky for it.”