The Python diaries

Michael Palin's diary had a timely beginning, timely because he started it just a month before he and five other young men got together to form what became known as Monty Python. For more than a decade Monty Python would entertain millions with a television series, movies, stage performances, records and books. Palin gives us a day-by-day account of all this in his Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years (2006).

Diaries are by nature personal and subjective, and so the book shows us Python only from Palin's perspective. It places him at the center of everything and makes him the observer of the foibles, weaknesses and habits of the others. John Cleese contributes a blurb to the cover saying that Palin never stops talking. That's the kind of thing we don't learn from the diaries themselves.

The diaries are about much more than just Monty Python. There's much about Helen, his wife, and their three young children, and about his aging parents. (His father dies during these years.) He writes about hosting Saturday Night Live three times and about trying to write a novel. Yet Python always remains the main attraction.

Palin and Terry Jones had been friends and writing partners since their university days, and according to Palin he and Jones are the core of the comedy group, the ones who do most of the writing  and can be most depended upon to be where they are supposed to be and do what they are supposed to do.

Cleese comes to the group early and is a massive talent, yet also something of a prima donna. He would much rather be on holiday in France than working in England. In 1978 Palin quotes Cleese as describing his own classic TV show Fawlty Towers as "hack work," something to pay the bills.

Graham Chapman tended to be insecure, always late and often drunk, at least in the early years. Eric Idle was one for extremes, feeling one way about something on one day and totally different the next. Terry Gilliam, the only American in the group, isn't mentioned much early in diaries. He is the illustrator, seldom used as an actor, and so was not usually at the center of things. Later as Gilliam's talent as a director begins to emerge, he earns more mention in the diaries, especially with respect to Jabberwocky and the early work on Brazil (in which Palin will eventually play an important role).

For Python fans — and who else would read this massive book? —the best entries will be those about the making of favorite scenes, such as the "Pet Shop/Parrot" sketch and the "Upper Class Twit of the Year" sketch. If only Palin had known which bits would become most beloved, he might have written more about them at the time.