Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982) — watch online on iFILM — puts all six members of the troupe on stage in front of 6,000 people who arrived already knowing every line. John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones and Michael Palin work through their greatest material as a crowd that had memorised it chants along anyway.

The set covers the full span of the Python catalogue — the Spanish Inquisition, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Dead Parrot sketch — plus several numbers that never made it onto the BBC shows and songs performed live. Director Terry Hughes filmed five evenings at the famous open-air amphitheatre and cut them down to 80 minutes.

By this point the group had already released Holy Grail and Life of Brian; the Hollywood Bowl audience treated it like a rock concert, and that energy is what the film catches that no studio recording ever could. Watch Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982) online on iFILM.