Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (A sortabiography)

Eric Idle

Crown Archetype.

Comedian, actor, author, singer, playwright, director and songwriter. Eric Idle has turned his hand to all these with enormous success. The name Monty Python is known all over the world, and millions have taken the absurdist and so-typically British silliness to their hearts. Much has been written about the Python phenomena over the years, but there’s always something to add. Most of the Python crew have written memoirs, and Eric Idle adds to the knowledge by producing his own sortabiography.

Idle was born on March 29, 1943 in South Shields, County Durham, England. His early life was touched by tragedy when his RAF veteran father died in a road accident on Christmas Eve 1945 while hitchhiking home on leave to his family. Idle was sent on a charitable basis to the Royal Wolverhampton School, a tough boarding school where bullying was rife. As he writes of the establishment, “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 under unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python.”

Idle went on to Cambridge University under a scholarship, where he met John Cleese and formed a lifelong friendship that expanded over the swinging Sixties to include all the future Pythons. Idle’s induction to the famous Footlights saw him blossom as a sketch-writer, which segued into a varied career which has seen him travel the world almost as much as fellow Python, Michael Palin. Idle got to know and love such great stars as Beatle George Harrison, comic geniuses Robin Williams and Billy Connolly, as well as countless other stars of stage, screen and TV. His tributes to Harrison and Williams are especially moving.

Named after his greatest hit, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which became the top request at British funerals, this sortabiography is a laugh aloud insider account into the Python crew at their best and worst, and one man’s incredible journey into the world consciousness.