Eric Idle sings with the cast in surprise Stratford ‘Spamalot’ appearance

Eric Idle is the happiest ghost I’ve ever met.

The 80-year-old founding member of the British comedy troupe Monty Python and creator of the hit musical “Spamalot” was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three years ago, and against all odds survived it.

“I should be dead now. I’m in the top 1 per cent. They saved my life with a five-hour operation,” he said. “I feel like I got a reprieve. It’s like coming back and being a ghost.”

On a recent two-day visit to the Stratford Festival to see its pandemic-postponed staging of “Spamalot,” Idle radiated good cheer, whether it was signing books, greeting audience members during the intermission, or coming on stage to sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” with the cast during the curtain call.

I interviewed him before the show over tea and scones (his request) and asked why, given that he’s doubtless seen “Spamalot” hundreds of times since its hit Broadway world premiere in 2005, he’s still eager to watch subsequent productions.

“I haven’t seen it since lockdown!” he exclaimed. “I want to see what works, how the crowd reacts. The pandemic’s changed everyone’s ways of thinking and behaving. And you want to make sure the play still addresses some things.”

Based on the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the show is a spoof of Arthurian legend and a meta-musical about the show itself trying to get to Broadway. Idle wrote the book and lyrics and co-wrote the music with John Du Prez.

He grabbed the opportunity to visit the Stratford production during its preview period, in part because it has a months-long run ahead of it and he could perhaps give a few notes: “If there’s anything you like or don’t, you can say something to someone quietly,” he said.

He clearly still gets a huge kick out “Spamalot.” I watched the show sitting behind him and he laughed not only at the biggest jokes but also at original line readings or gestures by the actors. “It’s always interesting because there’s always somebody who’s really funny or does something slightly different. Writers always love actors because they save your ass every time.”

During the intermission, Idle and I chatted about how well the show was going down with the audience: The laughter was explosive and felt cathartic. “Spamalot” originally premiered on Broadway only a few years after 9/11, and Idle agreed that there was a similar feel to this reaction. After the pandemic, it felt like there was a huge release and relief to this laughter.

His appearance at the curtain call clearly came as a happy surprise to the audience. There were gasps around me when he came onstage, and the whole audience stood up and joined in the chorus of “Bright Side.” Afterwards, a number of audience members around me collapsed in their seats shaking their heads, evidently trying to process the experience of sharing space with a comedy legend. Their diversity of ages attested to the staying power of Python: some were teenagers, some middle-aged, some seniors.

Idle, who is very active on Twitter, has since pinned a Tweet of a video clip of him singing with the cast at the curtain call calling this a “Wonderful new production” and saving special praise for the “fab director Lezlie Wade.”

Idle did not become wealthy from the “Monty Python” TV series nor films, but “Spamalot” made him rich, and the rest of the troupe didn’t do poorly either (though the other Pythons were not creatively involved in the show, they have a financial stake because it’s based on existing material).

“I mean, it’s all gone now,” laughed Idle. “But we made money for the first time. I mean, big money.” The show played for nearly four years on Broadway, winning three Tony Awards including Best Musical, and has played in London’s West End, Las Vegas, and in many international locations and on numerous tours.

When conceiving the show, he knew that Python fans would flock to see it. “But it was always my ambition to try and get the other audience who didn’t know Python. Who wanted to go to a musical. And I think we did that,” said Idle. “I remember people in Chicago, a couple of old ladies in the back who said ‘I’ve never heard of Monty Python but I really like this show.’ That for me was it. We’d nailed it.”

There are many famous stories about new musicals turning a corner during their out-of-town tryout, when the writers come up with a new song to fix a moment that’s not working. Idle’s got such a story about “Spamalot” — but it’s not about a new song, rather a famous old one.

The late Mike Nichols came on board as director of the original production of “Spamalot” on the condition that “Always Look on the Bright Side” was included as an encore. That song wasn’t part of “Holy Grail” but rather “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” — Idle sang it during a crucifixion scene, a classic Python parody of the British tendency toward stiff-upper-lip-ism in the face of adversity.

Idle’s big out-of-town revelation about “Spamalot” was that “Bright Side” needed to feature in the show itself, at the top of the second act. “After the intermission everyone comes back and they’ve had a little drink and they’d like to have a little nap,” he said. Performing a familiar song was a way of welcoming the audience back with something pleasant and familiar that would perk them up without unduly challenging them (the song is also sung as a curtain call reprise, fulfilling Nichols’ condition).

Ever the hustler, Idle had been trying to get a film of “Spamalot” made for many years, but he told me that it’s dead in the water now because other members of the Python troupe are not on board.

“They didn’t want it. Well, one of them wanted it, but two of them spent 14 months and £20,000 of our money removing the name Monty Python,” he said. (The musical is officially called “Monty Python’s Spamalot”).

Was this hurtful?

“Oh, horrible,” he said. “Painful, it was…. But I thought ‘OK that’s it, I’m out. I’m gone, I’m not coming back for anything for you guys anymore’.”

He’s not involved in a “Life of Brian” stage project that John Cleese is spearheading, which will reportedly premiere in London in 2024: “I have nothing to do with that, for firm and historical reasons now,” said Idle. He doesn’t think Cleese’s idea to perform the show as a play without music is a good idea, because audiences will be expecting the original performers or lookalikes: “If it’s a musical, then it’s clear you’ve got to have singers and they’re going to be different from us,” he said.

Idle’s trip to Stratford was nearly 50 years to the day to the first time that he first visited Canada along with the rest of the Pythons, to promote the TV program “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.”

As part of this visit, he visited filmmaker Sarah Polley, who he’s known since she was an eight-year-old actor on “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” a film by his Python colleague Terry Gilliam. Polley wrote in her 2022 book “Run Towards the Danger” about the trauma she experienced working on the film. When she first started airing these concerns publicly, Idle reached out to her on Twitter. “I said, ‘you’re quite right. You were in great danger. We were all in great danger,’” he recalled. “She really was an extraordinary child and it was really torture what she had to go through.”

Idle said it’s not difficult for him to look back critically on Gilliam’s making of the film. “My daughter’s very good at this. You’ve got to separate the artist from the art,” he said. “Many artists are sh-ts … it doesn’t prevent us enjoying their stuff. We just don’t have to forgive them for their bad behaviour all the time, or try and avoid it, really. And Gilliam was under tremendous stress. But it was a painful process.”

At a reception following the performance of “Spamalot,” Idle cheerily posed for photos with the cast and crew. He was still going strong when I left late in the evening, chatting and laughing with the artists and with colleagues he’d brought with him. A happy ghost indeed.