Monty Python has always been considered quintessentially British, but the comedy troupe has a key Chicago connection: Kim “Howard” Johnson, who’s written several books on the group since his comprehensive tome The First 200 Years of Monty Python was published in 1989. A founding member of the first resident ensemble at ImprovOlympic, Johnson also cowrote Truth in Comedy, a manual on Chicago-style improv, with late Second City and ImprovOlympic guru Del Close and ImprovOlympic cofounder Charna Halpern.
KHJ: You’re obviously familiar with the audiences. [Idle staged his Greedy Bastard show at the Vic in 2003 and Eric Idle Exploits Monty Python at the Chicago Theatre in 2000.]
EI: It’s a great experience, a nice experience. I e-mailed [Terry] Gilliam when I was trying to persuade him to come in: “It’s like being dead, and seeing what happens after you’re dead!” The whole theater is being turned into a Terry Gilliam cartoon–there are clouds lowered from all over the ceiling. I wanted him to see that because I thought he’d be very touched.
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KHJ: So you had to turn it all into a musical. That must have been the greatest challenge.
EI: I’ve done something rather clever, but I don’t like to say it before it opens. There are more through lines for the characters, and they play more people.
KHJ: Are there still men in drag, I hope?
