Monty Python’s Eric Idle Tells All About ‘Spamalot,’ George Harrison, Mike Nichols and Life at 81

When Eric Idle, 81, was packing up to move recently (an experience he calls “Downsize Abbey”), he found a notebook chronicling the years-long creation of his and John Du Prez’s musical Spamalot, a hit on Broadway in 2004 and again in 2023. That notebook led to The Spamalot Diaries (Oct. 8), a ripping read that feels like a ride on a scary showbiz roller coaster, and an invitation to a movable feast of the elite in the celebrity fast lane.

It’s also a fascinating self-portrait of Idle, struggling for creative independence from his Python troupe mates, whose squabblesome personalities correspond to the knights they played in Monty Python and the Holy Grail — their 1975 film that Idle magically transformed into Spamalot.

Most of all, it’s a book about Idle’s bromance with Spamalot’s titanic director Mike Nichols, the only man to win Emmys (for Wit and Angels in America), a Grammy (best comedy album), an Oscar (The Graduate) and nine Tony Awards on Broadway.

Idle told AARP about his unexpected trip down memory lane.

Why publish your private diaries 20 years later?

I’m proud of my Diaries and I’m glad I found them. I had forgotten I had written them. I think they tell the truth about a long and difficult process.

What did life feel like to you at 50, and now? Was there a bit left in the toothpaste tube of life?

Are you kidding me? I’m over 80. I’d give anything to be a youthful over 50. There’s a lot left of life to enjoy, but beware, if you live in America you can never retire, because you have to get more and more jobs to pay for your dentists and doctors.…

My tip: Move to Europe fast as you can.

Also, I was well over 50 when I wrote Spamalot.

Tim Curry (center) stars in "Spamalot" at the Palace Theatre in London in 2006.

Donald Cooper / Alamy Stock Photo

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin helped raise the $400,000 to film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Spamalot grossed $343 million. How much of that remains in your bank account?

Well, none. Theater is better than the movies, where the object is to make sure that none of the money ends up in the pockets of the writers, but to mount a musical costs $24 million. They cost a million a week to run! You can take a million a week at the box office and still not get anything to pay down your initial investment. Even when you finally make a profit, the creatives get only a small percentage.

Your Spamalot song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” is the most-requested song at British funerals. Why?

I have no idea. But they don’t pay royalties.

After Spamalot’s Tony-gobbling triumph, was Steve Martin correct when he told you, “[The other Pythons] will never forgive you for this?”

YES.