Don't panic! I don't disagree with him. I'm not going to criticise him or them - or anyone else for that matter.
(I tried that once before - and it's not that it didn't end well, it's more that it was an interesting experiment, and I meant everything I wrote, but I'm not going back to that genre today.)
What do I think of Monty Python?
Who cares? It doesn't matter.
But the simple fact is that I was far too young to enjoy their programmes first time around. (Technically I wasn't even born when they started but I think that's included in 'far too young'.)
So I first watched their material on the umpteenth repeat. It wasn't new or fresh. I knew I was expected to find it funny and strange and original and breathtaking and freewheeling and so on. Sure, I didn't know the lines and the jokes and the punchlines (where provided) - but I knew to expect almost anything and so, when almost anything happened, it didn't feel unexpected.
That's not their fault. Clearly they were brilliant. I truly hope they still are. But I missed the chance to watch their shows when no one had any idea what was about to happen.
And, for that reason, they don't hold that special place in my laughter organ (whichever one that is - spleen?). No - Bill Bailey is in there. And Eddie Izzard. And Harry Hill. And Jo Brand. And Steve Coogan. I could go on.
Discovery
Bill and Eddie and Harry and Jo and Steve - these are the people that I saw when I first started watching live comedy in little upstairs rooms above pubs or smoky filthy basements below pubs or in rooms temporarily loaned out by the strip club that owned the building.
I didn't discover them (of course) - but I did discover I liked them, for myself, without being told by the huge crushing weight of acceptable public opinion that they were definitely to be liked.
I don't have memories of laughing at a late-night rerun of Monty Python on BBC2. But (I hope) I'll never forget the night that the headline comedian (whoever he was) failed to turn up and so Eddie Izzard, the compere, filled in with an extended set to close the show.
It might be all over YouTube now and almost memorised by some of the fans - but that night I heard his 'brought up by wolves' story for the first time and the tears were streaming and the muscles around my diaphragm were aching from pure, uncontrollable, wonderful laughter.
(No, it wasn't just me. Everyone was laughing that much. And it could also have been the night that Noel James set his hair on fire.)
And I couldn't even see Bill Bailey in a tiny, tiny room up a narrow staircase in a Soho pub when I first heard him sing 'The Leg Of Time'. It was standing room only and I wasn't as tall as the numerous (and probably fire-hazardous) crowd in front of me. So I didn't understand the laugh he got from his Dougal impression. But I remember the night and the show and the laughter.
This is the song, as recorded for his BBC2 series 'Is It Bill Bailey?'- still shockingly unavailable on DVD, despite my mentioning it yesterday.
Nostalgia
I admit it.
Original material
I can't criticise the new Monty Python project because I don't know what it's going to be and I probably won't want to criticise it once they announce it. (But I'm getting this blog post in now, beforehand, just in case.)
But, personally, I'm not in the right age bracket to go for a greatest-hits massive-arena tour. The thought of being in the middle of a crowd trying to simulcast Palin through the dead parrot sketch won't have me furiously refreshing my browser at 9am on whichever morning the tickets go on sale.
New material, in a venue where you can actually see the whites of their eyes - now that would be enticing. Then again, there are many, many comedians I'd see under those circumstances. Like Bill. But then, I did discover him*.
(* - see above. In case you've skim-read your way down here, I'm not claiming any particular skill or to have been involved in his success in any way except that I was one of the people who paid to see him and encouraged him by laughing like an idiot.)
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