Comedy rift revealed in newly discovered footage

Morecambe and Wise branded Monty Python ‘boring’ and ‘unprofessional’ in in a newly discovered interview.

In the footage, from 1973, Eric Morecambe dismissed the surreal troupe as ‘university comedy’, adding:  I'm afraid that a lot of it is very unprofessional.  And this irritates me, being a professional.’

He joked that he liked parts of it: 'the opening and the finish - it’s the little bit in the middle I don't like.’

But he wasn’t entirely dismissive, saying: ‘What does make me laugh, really makes me laugh. And what doesn't make me laugh bores me stiff.’

Ernie Wise said he also found the group patchy with ‘three minutes of very funny and then another eight minutes of boredom’ in each episode of Flying Circus

Their comments came to on the University of East Anglia’s  TV station Nexus while on tour in Norwich, and were unearthed during the making of a BBC Radio Norfolk documentary on the Nexus station.

Sir Michael Palin has now told the BBC he was ‘a little hurt’, but ‘intrigued’ by the comments. He said: 'It didn't seem particularly savage - but on the other hand, it was very clear what they felt.’

Published: 27 Aug 2021