Monty Python

 

Monty Python, sometimes known as The Pythons, were a British surreal comedy group, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, who created their sketch comedy show 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', that first aired on the BBC on October 5th, 1969.

Graham Chapman was born in Leicester and studied medicine at Cambridge and St. Bartholomew's, but he first participed in Cambridges footlights club, where he met and partnered with John Cleese which then led to his touring in New Zealand with 'Cambridge Circus'. Comedy overtook his medical career so Chapman and Cleese together wrote for "That was the week that was", "The frost report", "At last the 1948 show", "Marty" and "How to irritate people".

John Cleese was born in Weston-Super-Mare in North Somerset. Cleese studied law at Cambridge University, where he also wrote and performed in Cambridge Footlights revues with medical student Graham Chapman. He escaped a projected career as a solicitor by accepting an offer to write for BBC Radio. Cleese later worked on the pun-filled radio sketch show, "Im sorry, i'll read that again", which led to writing and starring in David Frosts's "The Frost Report" where he met fellow writers Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle.




Eric Idle was born in South Shields in Northern England. Idle was president of Footlights at Cambridge University and was the first to allow women into the theatrical club. He appeared on stage in "Oh! What a lonely war" contributed to the BBC Radio series "Im sorry, I'll read that again", and worked on "The Frost Report" and "We have ways of making you laugh" which also featured cartoonist Terry Gilliam. He later invited Terry Jones and Michael Palin and eventually Gilliam to join him on "Do not adjust your set".




Terry Gilliam was born and raised in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, Terry Gilliam's youthful enthusiasm for drawing cartoons infused his academic life and his streak of anti-authoritarianism. His early knockabout career, as a magazine illustrator and art director in L.A. and New York City in the 1960's, allowed him to cross paths with "Cambridge Cricus" starr John Cleese, who he featured in a "Help" magazine photo essay about a man's lust for a Barbie doll.




 Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, Wales. Among the Pythons, was an enthusiastic and passionate driver of the group. He has pursued perhaps the broadest range of artistic and intellectual pursuits, from writing and preforming to directing from comedian and childrens book author to Middle Ages scholar from documentary host to political columnist. Jones teamed up with fellow Oxford student Michael Palin to write and perform revues for the University's theatre club.





Michael Palin was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire. Michael was a student of history at Oxford, where he wrote and performed in theatrical shows with Terry Jones. The two became writing partners whose TV credits included "The Frost Report", "Marty", "Do not adjust your set" and "The complete and utler history of Britain".




 

Buster Keaton

Keaton was an American actor born in Kansas, US and passed in LA, US age 70.

As well as acting he was also well known for his directory, stunts, producing and writings. He began performing in 1917 featuring for the film The Butcher Boy. In 1924 he performed in the short film The Navigator the film shows how far Keaton would go to capture such a perfect gag sequence, the gags in the scenes that were performed underwater created the surreality in the scene though if the background of the underwater scene were to look more realistic then Keaton's actions would look more surreal.

One week

Buster Keaton stared in One Week. Many of the scenes are so unrealistic others however are really artfully constructed. A young couple has just got married and arrive at their new property, a truck arrives and drops a wooden box at their feet, inside the box is a wooden build it yourself kit for their new house. The couples efforts to build the house are both adorable and hilarious, involving slapstick manor and risky stunts. The next day the husband is stood at the front of the house, which looks as though it had been involved in a train wreck. The roof is too small and the house opens and closes at different parts on the walls.

 In the next scene a man is carrying a piano over his shoulder it was seen by the public as a very surrealist image. The piano then becomes the centre of attention in which the couple both use ropes to pull the piano inside the house but fails at the end as it falls through the floor.

Its easy to see why films such as One Week appealed to surrealists such as Bunuel who described Keaton and Chaplin as 'The finest poets that cinemas could have produced'

Bruce Lacey

Bruce Lacey



 

Bruce Lacey was born in 1927, London and is still alive today. He is a British artist, performer and eccentric. When he completed his national service in the Navy, he became established on the scene with his performance art and mechanical constructs.

 

Lacey played a mad scientist in the feature film 'Smashing Time', but his most famous appearance on film remains George Harriaon's flute playing gardender in the Beatles feature film 'Help!'.















5 things that I know now which I didn't know before are that:
1 - Bruce Lacey exsists
2 - Spike Milligan exsists
3 - Spike Milligan had 3 wifes
4 - Milligan had 6 children
5 - Bruce Lacey makes robots

Spike Milligan




Spike Milligan

Sir Terence Alan Milligan was born in British India, April 16th, 1918 and died in East Sussex, England, February 27th, 2002 age 83.

He was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. He was born in India but spent majority of his working life in the United Kingdom. He disliked his first name and began to call himself "Spike" after hearing a band on Radio Luxembourg called "Spike Jones and the City Slickers".

 

Health

Spike Milligan suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten serious mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year.

Peter Sellers(top), Spike Milligan(Left)
and Harry Secombe(right)

Career
Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles and Minnie Bannister characters. Milligan wrote and edited many books, including Puckoon, a comic novel.

Family

Comic novel by Spike Milliagn

Milligan had 3 Wifes throughout his life. He married his first wife, June Marlow, in 1952. They had three children - Laura, Sean and Sile and then divorced in 1960. He had one daughter with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway. They were married in 1962 and the marriage then ended with her death from breast cancer in 1978. In 1975, Milligan had a son , James, born in 1976, in an affair with Margaret Maughan. Another child, a daughter Romany, is suspected to have been born at the same time to a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt. His last wife who he remained married to until he passed was Shelagh Sinclair, married in 1983 and divorced in 2002.



Death

Milligan died from Kidney failure, at the age of 83, at his home in Rye, Sussex. On the day of his funeral, March 8th, 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea and was draped in the flag of Ireland. He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to say the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas's churchyard but the Chichester diocese refused to allow this epitaph. A compromise was reached with the Irish translation, "Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite" and in English, "Love, light, peace".

Laurel and Hardy

Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson on June 16th, 1890 in Ulverston, England and died on February 23th, 1965.

 

Oliver Hardy was born Norvell Hardy on January 18th, 1892 in Harlem, Georgia and died on August 7th, 1957.

Laurel and Hardy were a comedy double act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema. They became well known during the late 1920s through the mid-1940s for their slapstick comedy with Laurel playing the clumsy and childlike friend of pompous Hardy.

Harold lloyd

Harold Clayton Lloyd was born in Burchard, Nebraska, United States in April 20th, 1893.

 He was an American actor, comedian, film director, film producer, screenwriter and stunt performer who is most famous for his silent comedy films.

Charlie Chaplin

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th 1889. His father was a vocalist and actor and his mother was an a attractive actress and singer. Due to his fathers early death and the illness of his mother at the age of ten,  meant that Charile and his brother, Sydney had to fend for themselves.

When he was twelve, he first acted in a legitimate stage show and appeared as ''Billy'' the paper boy, in the support of William Gillette in ''Sherlock Holmes''.  Charlie then started a career as a comedian in vaudeville, which eventually took him to the United States in 1910.

 

  

 

 

 

Charlie starred in many films like:

 

The Kid - 1921

 In 1921, he came out with a six-reem masterpiece: The Kid, in which he introduced to the screen one of the greatest child actors the world has ever known, Jackie Coogan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Circus - 1928

''The Circus'' won him his first Academy Award in 1929 but as late as 1964, it seemed this was a film he preferred to forget. The reason was not the film itself, but the deeply fraught circumstances surrounding its making.

 

 

 

Automatic story

There was once a girl called betty and she was a cat. She run all the way up and down the street every day so that she could see the rabbits run into their holes. One day a bettle came up to betty and bit her ear off. Betty started poring out skittles and all the ants all over the world came to witness this moment. when betty calmed down, the skittles began to stop. Everyone drived into them and fillied all their tiny tummies. But there was a problem, betty was angry, this wanted her skittles back so she began to scream and shout until the tardis landed and squished all the creates. Betty was so pleased but then suddenly realised that her skittles also had been squashed so she tipped the tadis over and set it on fire. Betty ran all the way back home to see that her feathers had been damaged in the riot. By this time betty was hungry so she skipped down to KFC to get herself a bargin buket all to herself until she then lately choaked on a chicken bone while on the toilet and died. Bettys mum then fell madly in love with bettys lover and they lived happily ever after.

 

The end.

Automatism

Andre Masson. Automatic Drawing. 1924

Automatic Drawing

Automatism has taken on many forms: the automatic writing and drawing practiced by surrealists can be compared to similar or perhaps parallel phenomena such as the non-idiomatic improvisation.

Surrealist automatism is different from mediumistic automatism from which the term was inspired. Ghosts, spirits or the like are not purported to be the source of surrealist automatic messages.

The Surrealists embraced automatic drawing as way to incorporate randomness and the subconscious into their drawings, and to free themselves from artistic conventions and everyday thinking.

This technique, they felt was a way in to access meaning and information unavailable through tradition and the conscious mind.

Max Ernst. The Entire City 1934

Frottage is a surrealist and automatic method that involves creating a piece of work by rubbing an textured surface using a pencil or other drawing material. An example of one is on the left hand side.

The technique was developed by Max Ernst in drawings made from 1925. Frottage is the French word for rubbing.

Automatic Drawing is sort of an yoga experience foe artists. It is the key to becoming centered, whole and flexible. Regular yoga practice loosens the body and relaxes the mind and sprit. Automatic drawing or free drawing does the same for artists.

My Automatic drawings;

I enjoyed doing this session as I was able to let my mind run free by just moving my pencil anywhere all around the paper. 

Automatic Writing

Automatic writing is the process of writing without using the conscious mind.