Steve Coogan on Terry Jones: he was the heart and voice of Monty Python
I was too young to catch the first, or even the second, Monty Python series when it went out on TV. So I used to listen to the records instead. There’s more detail and production value in vinyl, more craft. I still know a lot of the sketches off pat. I can recite them even now.
Listening to those records and seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail at the cinema showed me that comedy anarchy wasn’t just legitimate, you could actually make a living from it. In some ways, it was very accessible and silly, but also esoteric and deliberately avant-garde. Terry Jones was the sort of affectionate, lovable side of Python. He and Michael Palin were the heart; John Cleese, Terry Gilliam and Graham Chapman the mind. There was something wonderfully life-affirming about the spiky comedy of Chapman and Cleese; it all worked together beautifully. And when you think of that classic Python voice – “Ooh!” – that’s Terry.
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I got to work with him on The Wind in the Willows, 25 years ago, with Eric Idle. Terry directed and played Toad. I was still in my 20s and working with my comedy heroes – it was a dream come true! When I first went to his house in Camberwell, south London, he did the funny voices and said: “This is where the Pythons wrote all our sketches together.” He showed me the camera obscura he kept in his loft. It was magical.
Arriving on the set every day was a joy. Terry was gregarious, effusive, enthusiastic and kind – just such a kind man. There was always silliness and abstraction in his work, but it had a humanity underneath. He never lost that enthusiasm, was never blasé about it. He just enjoyed it.
I saw him a couple of times in the past few years. I went for a visit recently and just sat with him. It was sad when he started to fade away. It made you remember what great company he had been, always so encouraging. Had he been a reticent man, it wouldn’t have been such a contrast, but he always made you feel as if you were his best friend.
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It is 51 years since Python first went out and it paved the way for my generation of comedy writers and performers. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants – and he was one of those giants. Terry was the reason the Python series were able to be shown again: had he not taken the tapes from the BBC, they would have been wiped. I’m not sure whether he bought them or nicked them, but he kept them in his loft. At the time, BBC executives saw comedy as ephemeral, disposable entertainment. We now know how culturally important it all was.
Before video existed, I used to record episodes of Ripping Yarns with a microphone and a cassette recorder in my living room. The TV series was Terry’s reinvention of all those Boy’s Own adventures he grew up with. It was so escapist, silly and odd. In only half an hour, they took you to another world. Once I had recorded a show, it was all about trying to emulate it. I would do impersonations of all the characters for my friends at school. That was my first foray into comedy.
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When I think of Terry’s standout moments, I think of Mr Creosote in The Meaning of Life, or Life of Brian, which is now a seminal film – Terry pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man because only men are allowed to stone people to death. He was very good at being funny women.
The Brexit people talk about a sense of being British. I have never been a flag-waver or nationalistic, but I do love what I might call Britishness – and it’s the Britishness of Monty Python and Terry, that anti-establishment streak of irreverence. Forget the monarchy and the institutions. It’s people like Terry Jones who make me proud to be British.
