Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Sketches
Page 8
Squire: Yes....
Man: What's it like?
* * *
Return to the sketches index
Song 'And did those feet' /
Art Gallery & Critic
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 4
* * *
The cast:
SINGER
Eric Idle
JANET
John Cleese
MARGE
Graham Chapman
CRITIC
Michael Palin
WIFE
Katya Wyeth
* * *
The sketch:
(Opening Scene : Singer in spangly jacket sitting on high stool with guitar.)
Singer: (singing to the tune of Jerusalem) And did those teeth in ancient time...
(CAPTION: 'LIVE FROM THE CARDIFF ROOMS, LIBYA')
Singer: ... walk upon England's mountains green. (he stops playing) Good evening and welcome ladies and gentlemen. At this time we'd like to up the tempo a litde, change the mood. We've got a number requested by Pip, Pauline, Nigel, Tarquin, and old Spotty - Tarquin's mother - a little number specially written for the pubescence of ex-King Zog of Albania, and it's entitled 'Art Gallery'. Hope you like it.
(Interior of art gallery. Two figures enter. They are both middle-aged working mothers. Each holds the hand of an unseen infant who is beneath the range of the camera.)
Janet: 'Allo, Marge!
Marge: Oh hello, Janet, how are you love?
Janet: Fancy seeing you! How's little Ralph?
Marge: Oh, don't ask me! He's been nothing but trouble all morning. Stop it Ralph! (she slaps at unseen infant) Stop it!
Janet: Same as my Kevin.
Marge: Really?
Janet: Nothing but trouble ... leave it alone! He's just been in the Florentine Room and smeared tomato ketchup all over Raphael's Baby Jesus. (shouting off sharply) Put that Baroque masterpiece down!
Marge: Well, we've just come from the Courtauld and Ralph smashed every exhibit but one in the Danish Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition.
Janet: Just like my Kevin. Show him an exhibition of early eighteenth-century Dresden Pottery and he goes berserk. No, I said no, and I meant no! (smacks unseen infant again) This morning we were viewing the early Flemish Masters of the Renaissance and Mannerist Schools, when he gets out his black aerosol and squirts Vermeer's Lady At A Window!
Marge: Still it's not as bad as spitting is it?
Janet: (firmly) No, well Kevin knows (slaps the infant) that if he spits at a painting I'll never take him to all exhibition again.
Marge: Ralph used to spit - he could hit a Van Gogh at thirty yards. But he knows now it's wrong - don't you Ralph? (she looks down) Ralph! Stop it Stop it Stop chewing that Turner! You are ... (she disappears from shot) You are a naughty, naughty, vicious little boy. (smack; she comes back into shot holding a copy of Turner's Fighting Temeraire in a lovely gilt frame but all tattered) Oh, look at that! The Fighting Temeraire - ruined! What shall I do?
Janet: (taking control) Now don't do a thing with it love, just put it in the bin over there.
Marge: Really?
Janet: Yes take my word for it, Marge. Kevin's eaten most of the early nineteenth-century British landscape artists, and I've learnt not to worry. As a matter of fact, I feel a bit peckish myself. (she breaks a bit off the Turner) Yes...
(Marge also tastes a bit.)
Marge: I never used to like Turner.
Janet: (swallowing) No ... I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.
(Cut to a book-lined study. At a desk in front of the shelves sits an art critic with a mouthful of Utrillo. SUPERIMPOSED CAPTION: 'AN ART CRITIC')
Critic: (taking out stringy bits as he speaks) Mmmm... (munches) Well I think Utrillo's brushwork is fantastic... (stifles burp) But he doesn't always agree with me ... (belches) Not after a Rubens, anyway ... all those cherries ... ooohh ... (suddenly looks down) Ur'gh! I've got Vermeer all down my shirt...
Wife: (bringing in a water jug and glass on a tray and laying it on his desk) Watteau, dear?
Critic: What a terrible joke.
Wife: But it's my only line.
Critic: (rising vehemently) All right! All right! But you didn't have to say it! You could have kept quiet for a change
(Wife cries.)
Critic: Oh, that's typical. Talk, talk, talk. Natter, natter, natter!
(Cut back to singer.)
Singer: (singing) Bring me my arrows of desire ... Bring me my spear oh clouds unfold ... Bring me my chariot of fire.
(A sexy girl (Katya ) enters and starts fondling him.)
* * *
Return to the sketches index
It's a man's life in the modern army /
Undressing In Public
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 4
* * *
The cast:
COLONEL
Graham Chapman
MAN
Terry Gillam
GENTLEMAN
Terry Jones
SECOND MAN
Michael Palin
POLICEMAN
Graham Chapman
* * *
The sketch:
(On-screen caption: 'IT'S A MAN'S LIFE IN THE CARDIFF ROOMS, LIBYA'. Scene : Colonel with army recruitment posters on wall behind him.)
Colonel: Right, cut to me. As Officer Commanding the Regular Army's Advertising Division, I object, in the strongest possible terms to this obvious reference to our own slogan 'lt's a dog's life ... (correcting himself rapidly) a man's life in the modern army' and I warn this programme that any recurrence of this sloppy long-haired civilian plagiarism will be dealt with most severely. Right, now on the command 'cut', the camera will cut to camera two, all right, director... (cut to a man sitting at desk) Wait for it! (cut back to colonel) Camera cut. (cut to man; he has a Viking helmet on)
Man: This is my only line. (catcalls) (defensively) Well, it's my only line.
(Cut to a gentleman in striped blazer, boater and cricket flannels walking down to beach clutching towel and bathing trunks. He puts his towel on a breakwater next to another towel and starts to change. He suddenly looks up and we see everyone on the beach has turned to watch him - not with any disapproval just a blank English stare. He grabs his towel off the breakwater and starts to take his trousers off under that. Girl in a bikini has been sitting on other side of the breakwater, stands up looking for her towel. She sees that the man is using it and she whisks it off him leaving him clutching his half-down trousers. Shot of everyone staring at him again. He pulls them up and makes fir a beach hut... embarrassed. He goes into beach hut. Inside he is about to take his trousers off, when he becomes aware of a pair of feet which come up to the back of the beach hut - there is a 6-inch gap along bottom - and stop as if someone wen peering through the crack. The man looks slightly outraged and pulls his trousers up, goes outside and edges cautiously round to the back of the beach hut. Then he finds a man bending close to the side of the beach hut with his hand to his face. The Gentleman kicks him hard in the seat of the pang. The man turns in obvious surprise, to reveal he was merely trying to light his cigarette out of the wind. The gentleman backs away with embarrassed apologies. We cut to the front of the beach hut to see gentleman backing round at the same time as a large matronly woman marches into the hut... the man follows her in. He is promptly thrown out on his ear. In desperation he looks around. On the promenade he suddenly sees an ice-cream van. fie walks up to it, looks around, then nips behind to start changing. At the same time a policeman strolls up to the ice-cream van and tells it to move on. The van drives off, exposing the gentleman clutching his trousers round his ankles. Close-up policeman's reaction. The man hurriedly pulls trousers up as policeman approaches him pulling out note book. Still covered in confusion he runs 12way from the policeman. In long shot we see him approach the commissionaire of the Royale Palace De Luxe Hotel. He whispers to the commissionaire, indicates by mime that he wa
nts to take his trousers off: The commissionaire reacts to the gesture. The man nods. The commissionaire starts to take his trousers off. Man backs away once more in confusion - he has been misunderstood. Back on the beach again. He hides behind a pile of deck chairs. At that moment a beach party of jolly trippers arrive and each takes one. The deck chair pile rapidly disappears leaving the gentleman once again exposed. He dashes behind the deck chair attendant's hut which is next to him. Enter two workmen who dismantle it. Desperate by now he goes onto the pier. He goes into the amusement arcade, looking around furtively. Nips behind a 'what the butler saw' machine. Woman comes and puts penny in and starts to look, beckons over husband,' he comes, looks in the machine, sees the man' changing his trousers. They chase him off. Stir pursued he nips into door. Finds himself in blackness. Relieved - at last he has found somewhere to change. He relaxes and starts to take his trousers off. Suddenly hears music and applause... curtains swishes back to reveal he is on stage of the pier pavilion. The audience applauds. Resigned to his fate, he breaks into stiptease routine.)
Voice Over: (and Caption) 'IT'S A MAN'S LIFE TAKING YOUR CLOTHES OFF IN PUBLIC
(Cut to colonel)
Colonel: Quiet. Quiet. Now wait a minute. I have already warned this programme about infringing the Army copyright of our slogan 'It's a pig's life... man's life in the modern army'. And I'm warning you if it happens again, I shall come down on this programme like a ton of bricks... right. Carry on sergeant major.
* * *
Return to the sketches index
Self-defense against Fresh Fruit
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 4
* * *
About the Sketch:
Not only did the sketch appear in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 4, it also featured in the Movie - 'And Now For Something Completely Different'. This sketch were also performed on their Album 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'.
* * *
The cast:
COLONEL
Graham Chapman
SERGEANT MAJOR
John Cleese
FIRST MAN
Graham Chapman
SECOND MAN
Michael Palin
THIRD MAN
Terry Jones
SINGER
Eric Idle
MAN
John Cleese
* * *
The sketch:
Colonel: get some discipline into those chaps, Sergeant Major!
Sargeant: (Shouting throughout) Right sir! Good evening, class.
All: (mumbling) Good evening.
Sargeant: Where's all the others, then?
All: They're not here.
Sergeant: I can see that. What's the matter with them?
All: Dunno.
1st Man: Perhaps they've got 'flu.
Sergeant: Huh! 'Flu, eh? They should eat more fresh fruit. Ha. Right. Now, self-defence. Tonight I shall be carrying on from where we got to last week when I was showing you how to defend yourselves against anyone who attacks you with armed with a piece of fresh fruit.
(Grumbles from all)
2nd Man: Oh, you promised you wouldn't do fruit this week.
Sergeant: What do you mean?
3rd Man: We've done fruit the last nine weeks.
Sergeant: What's wrong with fruit? You think you know it all, eh?
2nd Man: Can't we do something else?
3rd Man: Like someone who attacks you with a pointed stick?
Sergeant: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit. When your assailant lunges at you with a passion fruit...
All: We done the passion fruit.
Sergeant: What?
1st Man: We done the passion fruit.
2nd Man: We done oranges, apples, grapefruit...
3rd Man: Whole and segments.
2nd Man: Pomegranates, greengages...
1st Man: Grapes, passion fruit...
2nd Man: Lemons...
3rd Man: Plums...
1st Man: Mangoes in syrup...
Sergeant: How about cherries?
All: We did them.
Sergeant: Red *and* black?
All: Yes!
Sergeant: All right, bananas.
(All sigh.)
Sergeant: We haven't done them, have we? Right. Bananas. How to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. Now you, come at me with this banana. Catch! Now, it's quite simple to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him 'elpless.
2nd Man: Suppose he's got a bunch.
Sergeant: Shut up.
4th Man: Suppose he's got a pointed stick.
Sergeant: Shut up. Right now you, Mr Apricot.
1st Man: 'Arrison.
Sergeant: Sorry, Mr. 'Arrison. Come at me with that banana. Hold it like that, that's it. Now attack me with it. Come on! Come on! Come at me! Come at me then! (Shoots him.)
1st Man: Aaagh! (dies.)
Sergeant: Now, I eat the banana. (Does so.)
2nd Man: You shot him!
3rd Man: He's dead!
4th Man: He's completely dead!
Sergeant: I have now eaten the banana. The deceased, Mr Apricot, is now 'elpless.
2nd Man: You shot him. You shot him dead.
Sergeant: Well, he was attacking me with a banana.
3rd Man: But you told him to.
Sergeant: Look, I'm only doing me job. I have to show you how to defend yourselves against fresh fruit.
4th Man: And pointed sticks.
Sergeant: Shut up.
2nd Man: Suppose I'm attacked by a man with a banana and I haven't got a gun?
Sergeant: Run for it.
3rd Man: You could stand and scream for help.
Sergeant: Yeah, you try that with a pineapple down your windpipe.
3rd Man: A pineapple?
Sergeant: Where? Where?
3rd Man: No I just said: a pineapple.
Sergeant: Oh. Phew. I thought my number was on that one.
3rd Man: What, on the pineapple?
Sergeant: Where? Where?
3rd Man: No, I was just repeating it.
Sergeant: Oh. Oh. I see. Right. Phew. Right that's bananas then. Now the raspberry. There we are. 'Armless looking thing, isn't it? Now you, Mr Tin Peach.
3rd Man: Thompson.
Sergeant: Thompson. Come at me with that raspberry. Come on. Be as vicious as you like with it.
3rd Man: No.
Sergeant: Why not?
3rd Man: You'll shoot me.
Sergeant: I won't.
3rd Man: You shot Mr. Harrison.
Sergeant: That was self-defence. Now come on. I promise I won't shoot you.
4th Man: You promised you'd tell us about pointed sticks.
Sergeant: Shut up. Come on, brandish that raspberry. Come at me with it. Give me Hell.
3rd Man: Throw the gun away.
Sergeant: I haven't got a gun.
3rd Man: You have.
Sergeant: Haven't.
3rd Man: You shot Mr 'Arrison with it.
Sergeant: Oh, that gun.
3rd Man: Throw it away.
Sergeant: Oh all right. How to defend yourself against a redcurrant -- without a gun.
3rd Man: You were going to shoot me!
Sergeant: I wasn't.
3rd Man: You were!
Sergeant: No, I wasn't, I wasn't. Come on then. Come at me. Come on you weed! You weed, do your worst! Come on, you puny little man. You weed...
(Sgt. pulls a lever in the wall--CRASH! a 16-ton weight falls on Jones)
3rd Man: Aaagh.
Sergeant:
If anyone ever attacks you with a raspberry, just pull the lever and the 16-ton weight will fall on top of him.
2nd Man: Suppose there isn't a 16-ton weight?
Sergeant: Well that's planning, isn't it? Forethought.
2nd Man: Well how many 16-ton weights are there?
Sergeant: Look, look, look, Mr Knowall. The 16-ton weight is just _one way_ of dealing with a raspberry killer. There are millions of others!
4th Man: Like what?
Sergeant: Shootin' him?
2nd Man: Well what if you haven't got a gun or a 16-ton weight?
Sergeant: Look, look. All right, smarty-pants. You two, you two, come at me then with raspberries. Come on, both of you, whole basket each.
2nd Man: No guns.
Sergeant: No.
2nd Man: No 16-ton weights.
Sergeant: No.
4th Man: No pointed sticks.
Sergeant: Shut up.
2nd Man: No rocks up in the ceiling.
Sergeant: No.
2nd Man: And you won't kill us.
Sergeant: I won't.
2nd Man: Promise.
Sergeant: I promise I won't kill you. Now. Are you going to attack me?
2nd & 4th Men: Oh, all right.
Sergeant: Right, now don't rush me this time. Stalk me. Do it properly. Stalk me. I'll turn me back. Stalk up behind me, close behind me, then in with the redcurrants! Right? O.K. start moving. Now the first thing to do when you're being stalked by an ugly mob with redcurrants is to -- release the tiger!
(He does so. Growls. Screams.)
Sergeant: The great advantage of the tiger in unarmed combat is that he eats not only the fruit-laden foe but also the redcurrants. Tigers however do not relish the peach. The peach assailant should be attacked with a crocodile. Right, now, the rest of you, where are you? I know you're hiding somewhere with your damsons and prunes. Well I'm ready for you. I've wired meself up to 200 tons of gelignite, and if any one of you so much as makes a move we'll all go up together! Right, right. I warned you. That's it...