Before the Circus Flew

A crooked, wildly-bearded man, garbed in the ragged mode of Treasure Island's Ben Gunn, stumbles out of an azure sea onto a sandy beach. Crawling desperately forward, he gasps out a single word: "It's..." So began, forty years ago, perhaps the single most eulogised TV comedy of all time, Monty Python's Flying Circus - though it might have been called Owl Stretching Time, Arthur Megapode's Cheap Show, or Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot.

Individually and collectively, the six Pythons - Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - transformed British humour. But brilliant as it was, the Python wit didn't spring from nowhere. In a thorough examination of the Python legacy, we explore the deep roots of the sextet's erudite and surreal comedy.

The roots of Monty Python