Monty Python: Just the Words: Vol 2 (Just the Words) |
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Graham Chapman
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Pages: 368 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0413741109
Pub: Methuen Publishing Ltd
Pub date: 1999-10-11
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 190416
Editorial Review:
The companion volume to Monty Python's Flying Circus: Just The Words, Vol 1, this picks up the baton and gives us the scripts from the end of the second series, through the whole of the third and the brief fourth. Received wisdom is that TV Python witnessed a certain decline in quality towards the end, but there's little evidence of that here, with such iconic sketches as Spam, Summarise Proust, the Cheese shop and Oscar Wilde. Eventhe final six shows, made without the input of Cleese, contain gems: the Most Awful Family in Britain ("Beans!") for instance, or "Poetry Reading(Ants)".
It is true that some of the writing here is simply wacky, surreal in the sense that Salvador Dali isn't so funny; a fair amount is fairly ordinary BBC-sketch stuff. But there are gleaming moments of perfect comedy, if such a thing exists. The Hungarian with the dodgy phrase book starts as standard farce humour:
Hungarian: (Cleese) I will not buy this record. It is scratched.
Tobacconist: (Jones) Sorry?
Hungarian: I will not buy this record. It is scratched.
Tobacconist: No, no, no. This ... tobacconist's.
Hungarian: Ah! I will not buy this tobacconist's. It is scratched.
But it is the way the sketch continues, the spot-on weirdness of the subsequent mistranslated phrases--"my hovercraft is full of eels", "drop your panties Sir William I cannot wait till lunchtime"--that shows the genius of Python. It is the same precision of absurdity that puts the singing Vikings in the back of the otherwise straightforward Spam sketch; difficult to say which that is so funny, so right, but it is. This book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how comedy works, as much as it is for Python fans. --Adam Roberts
Reader Reviews:
It's (0/0 people found this helpful)
I've seen "Monty Python's Flying Circus" so many times that I can recite long stretches of it by memory. But due to all those weird accents and manic deliveries ("GREET! GREET!"), sometimes not everything they say is totally coherent.
Fortunately for those times, Python fans have "The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words," a series of transcripts of every sketch they did. They're lacking in detail at times, but still enormous fun and full of delightfully quotable lines ("It's probably pining for the fjords!").
Basically, ther first volume contains the first half the series, starting with the Mozart show and ending with "Long John Silver Impersonators Vs. Gynecologists. Among the classic comedy sketches: the Spanmish Inquisition, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the lethal joke used against the Germans, semprini, the Lumberjack song, the Attila the Hun show, how to defend yourself from fresh fruit, camel-spotting, Secret Service dentists, and the invasion of tennis-playing blamcmanges from the galaxy of Andromeda.
The dialogue to each one is laid out carefully, with each character identified (like "Interviewer (JOHN)"). Most of these episodes are one long continuing sketch -- ots of sketches that spill over into each other, with bare-bones descriptions of Terry Gilliam's bizarre animations. And, of course, the opening sequences, often with the "It's" man.
These guys had a rare and hysterical writing talent -- it's full of crazy glorious dialogue ("The black death, typhus, cholera, consumption, bubonic plague..." "Ah, those were the days"). Not much description of the action in places, though, especially where there is lots of action. But when necessary, they describe everything down to clothing and tear-shedding.
The problem is that this should only be read after you've seen the series, because otherwise it becomes a bewildering blur of stream-of-consciousness comedy numbers. You have a better chance of finding Ilchester in a cheese shop than of unerstainding what the heck is going on.
The first volume of "The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words" is a hilarious companion book to the legendary TV series, and an excellent refresher for all those great lines. Now, alduce me to introlow myslef!
Script - Transcript - Small mammal? (0/0 people found this helpful)
The argument of if this is a script or transcript in my opinion is totaly irrelivent!! I love monty python, and this book has the dialouge from the shows. I personaly find this an interesting read. True, they dont offer any insights into the writers thought processes, but it does say on the front cover "JUST THE WORDS"!
And now for something completley different.
Excelent source of comedic writing at it's finest (1/1 people found this helpful)
Contrary to what others have said this is not a transcript of the show. These are scripts, or at least they would appear to be so as they are not word-for-word the same as the lines spoken in the show.
These scripts will allow you to replay, in your head, all those great moments of Python. In fact, if you so wished, you could even use them to perform exerpts from the shows, although for the purposes of accuracy you would probably be better off watching the episodes again.
NOT script, but TRANSCRIPT! (2/12 people found this helpful)
As a devout fan of Monty Python, I am disappointed with this publication, as it is not what professional comedy writers (or, indeed, any writer) would properly call a collection of "scripts." It is a collection of transcripts, admittedly collated with great care and precision. For example, every single "um" and "er" is precisely replicated, as I have read along whilst viewing the DVD version of the episode. No script anticipates such actor compliance with a text! Additionally, I find it preposterous to believe that the scripts for the comedy sketches have been written with such foresight to Terry Gilliam's intersections of comic illustration and cartoons.
In summary, I applaude whoever had the tenacity to meticulously capture every last syllable of spoken text, but nonetheless, this is NOT a collection of scripts. It is a transcript of the series as could have been captured by anyone with enough patience to have done so.
This is by no means a book to be purchased by any aspiring comedy writer seeking insight to Monty Python. It is, sadly, one more milking of the ouvre of a great comedy show that deserves more respect than the publishers have given it!
NOT script, but TRANSCRIPT! (5/19 people found this helpful)
As a devout fan of Monty Python, I am disappointed with this publication, as it is not what professional comedy writers (or, indeed, any writer) would properly call a collection of "scripts." It is a collection of transcripts, admittedly collated with great care and precision. For example, every single "um" and "er" is precisely replicated, as I have read along whilst viewing the DVD version of the episode. No script anticipates such actor compliance with a text! Additionally, I find it preposterous to believe that the scripts for the comedy sketches have been written with such foresight to Terry Gilliam's intersections of comic illustration and cartoons.
In summary, I applaude whoever had the tenacity to meticulously capture every last syllable of spoken text, but nonetheless, this is NOT a collection of scripts. It is a transcript of the series as could have been captured by anyone with enough patience to have done so.
This is by no means a book to be purchased by any aspiring comedy writer seeking insight to Monty Python. It is, sadly, one more milking of the ouvre of a great comedy show that deserves more respect than the publishers have given it!
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Music, Stage & Screen -> Television
Books -> Subjects -> Humour -> General
Books -> Subjects -> Humour -> TV Tie-in Humour
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback