`Revue is the most agreeable theatrical form,” Eric Idle says, “because nothing lasts longer than three minutes. If you’re bored, there’s going to be something else coming up.”
The English-born, Oxford-educated Idle laughs as he says it, but his resume suggests that boredom won’t be an issue for those in the audience of his new revue, “Eric Idle Exploits Monty Python” (the show comes to the Chicago Theatre on Tuesday).
As the title indicates, “Exploits” draws heavily from Idle’s days as a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the British troupe that transformed the comedy landscape with its innovative and admittedly quite silly movies and television programs. Back in 1969, before “Saturday Night Live” or “The Kids in the Hall,” Python was teaching us how to laugh at Australian philosophers, dead parrots and bar patrons who like a bit of “nudge-nudge,” if you know what we mean.
“What’s interesting to me is that the material has stood up so well,” Idle remarks. “Funny is still funny, you know what I mean?”
The title joke aside, this isn’t some cynical exercise in nostalgia: “Exploits” offers songs and sketches from throughout Idle’s career, although he admits that performing the material from his Python days gets the biggest response.
“The truth of it is, people like seeing things they’re familiar with, you know? It’s like seeing a rock ‘n’ roll tour; they want to see the hits. We’ve put some new stuff in, but the stuff that plays the best is the familiar, which is interesting.”
And pretty impressive, considering longevity wasn’t necessarily the goal some 30 years ago.
“George Harrison once said to me, `If we’d realized we were going to become the Beatles, we’d have tried harder,'” he says.
“You’re not aware when you’re doing a sketch that that’s the classic moment people will watch for years. It’s what you’re doing at the time.”
Even so, Idle admits, “It still runs, and it still looks funny. We wore wigs and disguises a lot, so it still looks silly. It doesn’t look dated.”
He laughs. “It doesn’t look that dated.”
Although Idle had done an embryonic version of “Exploits” at Los Angeles’ Getty Museum last year, it wasn’t until two more recent projects were completed (and a much-discussed Python reunion tour fell through) that he seriously considered taking his act on the road.
“I spent three years writing `The Road To Mars’–a futuristic novel involving a robot who tries to understand comedy– and thinking about what comedians do and what comedy is,” he says. “Then I did a little bit of performing on [the recently canceled sitcom] `Suddenly Susan,’ because that came along at the right time . . . and I learned that I enjoy being with a live audience. [I thought] `Wouldn’t it be fun to do it with some really knockout material, rather than just a sitcom?’ I miss doing that sort of sketch comedy. It felt liberating to be able to come back and do this stuff, which is why I was in the business in the first place.
“At this time of year in college,” he continues, “we’d always put a revue together and go out on the road with it, which I loved doing. Everything else has just come from that.”
Certainly his time with Python wasn’t spent racking up frequent-flier miles. “We did tour Canada in 1974,” Idle recalls, “and we did play New York for four weeks. And we did the Hollywood Bowl [in 1980]. That’s the sum of our performing, and it was 25 years ago!”
Since Python’s last project, 1983’s “The Meaning of Life,” Idle has kept busy as an actor (recent films include “Casper” and “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut”) and writer (“Writing novels in Hollywood is brilliant, because you know no one’s going to read them.”).
In the meantime, the songs Idle wrote for Python have enjoyed something of a renaissance. Clint Black recorded the bouncy “Galaxy Song” last year, while Jack Nicholson was heard crooning “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” the chipper closing number from the film “Life of Brian,” in “As Good As It Gets.”
Idle, who has been playing guitar since his teens (“Elvis was the one who changed our lives at school”), recently completed a major musical project, “Seussical,” based on the writings of Dr. Seuss.
Written with “Ragtime” composers Lynn Aherns and Stephen Flaherty, “Seussical” is scheduled to open on Broadway this fall. “It was a thrill for me to work with them,” he enthuses. “They just did the most musical musical, and I think it’s really going to be very good.”
Best of all, he seems to be at ease with his Python legacy. “I found a way to deal with it by revisiting it,” he says happily. “I don’t mind talking about it if I can go out and do it.”
