John Cleese Blames Eric Idle for ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Worst Scene

John Cleese recently embarked on a live tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Each event will be part film screening, part live Q&A and, presumably, part creeping realization that you just paid more than $100 to watch a movie you’ve already seen dozens of times.

But just because he’s busy touring the U.S. doesn’t mean that Cleese doesn’t still have time for more sloppy internet drama involving fellow ex-Python Eric Idle. In a recent burst of social media posts, Cleese seemingly responded to a recent interview with Idle by accusing him of “attacking” Monty Python business manager Holly Gilliam, adding that “he has bullied her for several years, and we all think it’s shameful.”

Cleese also, once again, threatened to leak private emails that will prove his point. 

If all that wasn’t enough, Cleese also took the opportunity to dunk on Idle’s creative contributions to the troupe in an otherwise innocuous interview about Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

While speaking to The Daytona Beach News-Journal Cleese noted that he still has some big complaints about the movie he’s currently touring. He recalled that The Holy Grail’s rock star backers, including Pink Floyd, “all thought it was a disaster” when they saw it for the first time. “They didn’t understand. They were terrified,” Cleese maintained.

And while he claimed that he “always liked” The Holy Grail, he then offered some pretty faint praise, arguing that “the first 50 minutes are really very, very good, full of stuff that still makes me laugh.” The movie is 90 minutes long.

He did compliment one scene involving Idle, in which his confused guard character is tasked with watching a prince played by Terry Jones. “At these screenings, I point out to the audience that there are no editing cuts in that scene, it’s just one take,” Cleese explained. “And it’s so much better as a result. Comedy is not about editing. Comedy is about people being funny in front of the camera.”

But in addition to the ending, which Cleese has re-edited for some screenings, he thinks that the film’s worst comedic moment is one written by and starring Idle: When Brave Sir Robin escapes the three-headed giant that can’t keep arguing with itself. “It’s the least good sketch in there,” the Fawlty Towers star suggested. “I don’t know whether it was not well-written, or not well-performed. It could have been both.” 

To be fair, Idle himself has said that the scene is “not very good,” which is why he cut it from the musical Spamalot.  

If only there was some lesson to be learned from a scene in which petty squabbling has unfortunate consequences.