"To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best." -- Eric Idle
Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He wrote and performed as a member of the British comedy group Monty Python.
"I like the idea of being out there regularly with an audience and with a funny gang of people. That's what I grew up with - doing television, doing shows every week.""I love being an older comic now. It's like being an old soccer or an old baseball player. You're in the Hall of Fame and it's nice, but you're no longer that person in the limelight on the spot doing that thing.""I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune. The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is.""No day of my life passes without someone saying the words 'Monty Python' to me. It's not bad.""Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.""The Minister of Transport issued this appeal to motorists: Can anyone give him a lift to Leicester?""We've discovered that the less we do, the more money we make.""You look just like you!"
Idle was born in South Shields,County Durham now Tyne and Wear) in Harton Village, the son of Nora Barron (née Sanderson), a health visitor, and Ernest Idle. His father had served in the Royal Air Force and survived World War II, only to be killed in a hitch-hiking accident on Christmas Eve 1945. CWGC :: Casualty Details His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and raising a child, so when he was seven, she enrolled him into the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder.
The school had begun life as a Victorian orphanage, and during Idle's time was a charitable foundation dedicated to the welfare of children who had lost one or both parents. Its pupils, who were mainly the children of dead English soldiers, still referred to it as the 'Ophney'.
Idle is quoted as saying: "It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python."
Idle stated that the two things that made his life bearable were listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes and watching the local football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Despite this, he disliked other sports and would sneak out of school every Thursday afternoon to the local cinema. He was eventually caught watching the X-rated film BUtterfield 8 and stripped of his prefecture, even though by that time he was head boy. Idle had already refused to be senior boy in the school cadet force, as he supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and had participated in the yearly Aldermaston March.
Idle maintains that there was little to do at the school and boredom drove him to study hard. He consequently won a place at Cambridge.
Idle attended Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he studied English. At Pembroke, he was invited to join the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club by the President of the Footlights Club, Tim Brooke-Taylor, and Footlights Club member Bill Oddie.
When Idle joined the Footlights Club, the other members included Graham Chapman and John Cleese, who were also attending the University of Cambridge.
Idle became Footlights President in 1965 and was the first to allow women to join the club.
Before Python (1967—69)
Idle starred in the children's television comedy series Do Not Adjust Your Set opposite his future Python fellows Terry Jones and Michael Palin (who were both former University of Oxford students). Terry Gilliam provided animations for the show. Other members of the cast were comic actors David Jason and Denise Coffey.
