Monty Python Almost The Truth (The Lawyers Cut) : Blu Ray Review

Monty Python loves a good old fashioned retrospective – as do their leigons of comedy loving fans. And while we think we all know everything there is to know about the sketch comedy group (and, when you think about it, how often can you tell the same story?) Monty Python’s Almost The Truth (The Lawyers Cut) somehow delivers the single most comprehensive study of the groundbreaking team… ever.

October 2009 saw the official celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the first broadcast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus by BBC TV in 1969. Almost The Truth: The Lawyer’s Cut tells the story of Monty Python through brand new interviews with the Pythons: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin and archive material from the late Graham Chapman.

Combining six programs, each an hour long (although I got sucked into paying cash to see a fairly dodgy 2 Hour Edit at a brief run in cinemas a few weeks before I realised this was being released… lame!), combine the interviews with a generous helping of clips from pre-Python material, the original Flying Circus TV series, the films and their classic live performance at the Hollywood Bowl.
If you’ve already read the excellent bio book Python By The Pythons – then there will be an annoying sense of dejavu through most of the episodes (with the book really just a transcript of a good number of these interviews), but seeing the old fellas back in action is well worth checking out.

The inclusion of “Opinions” by “Fellow Comedians” like Steve Coogan, Jimmy Fallon, Russell Brand, Dan Aykroyd and “That guy from The Kumars At Number 42” does take Monty Python : Almost The Truth into a fairly cheesy and fake 20 to 1 zone and can become quite distracting.

However, interviews with the Pythons co-workers (including The Goodies’ Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie) does even it all out and gives the project a tad more cred.

There are also an enormous amount of extras, including classic skits (yes, Parrot Sketch Included), a bunch of extended interview pieces and a pretty sweet Terry Gilliam picture gallery for arts nerds.

The Blu Ray Editon is super clean (and, as always, the pop up menus are still the coolest aspect of the new technology), however because the TV show clips and films are fairly old and scratchy anyways… you aren’t going to hate yourself if you opt for the DVD version instead.

A must have for all Monty Python fans, because it’s probably the best you are going to get at this late stage in the game.

WATCH OUT FOR | RATING : 4 / 5