eric

The last time Eric Idle’s “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” spoof musical “Spamalot” landed at a major L.A. venue a decade ago, he played the show’s tweedy historian, who sets the scene for the Arthurian legend with a seriousness entirely unfit for the absurdist romp to follow.

It was a perfect role for the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” alum, to whom dry humor comes as naturally as breathing.

But when “Spamalot” makes its long-awaited return to L.A. Tuesday at the Hollywood Pantages, Idle will take the stage only briefly, and not as a cast member. His job is to pop on and “say something funny or rude, which sadly, comes quite easy to me,” he said in a recent interview at Written Hand cocktail lounge, located just north of the theater.

Over a margarita and a few chef’s olives, Idle recounted his earliest forays into comedy, his legendary run and subsequent break with his former “Monty Python” castmates, and why “Spamalot” arrives in L.A. at the perfect time.

Explaining his scaled-back involvement in this iteration of his meta-musical, Idle said that at the golden age of 82, “I can’t do anything eight times a week” — though his agenda that day begged to differ.

He’d woken up around 6 a.m. for his daily writing session, powered through a meeting with his book publisher and capped off the sunlight hours with some “Spamalot” promos and a photoshoot, all before sitting down to dinner.

Though his admin tasks may tire him, Idle said comedy never does. Recently, he ran into the actor who plays King Arthur in the Pantages production at their hotel bar and asked him for notes on the script.

“He said, ‘There’s one speech.’ I said, ‘I know exactly which one it is,’” Idle recalled. “Every time I hear it I go, I must rewrite that.”

So Idle workshopped it — did the algebra, as he described it — and wound up with a new, zingier joke he preferred. Reciting it at the dinner table, Idle snapped his fingers in time with the punchline.

“I’ve done it 62 years. It still fascinates me,” he said.

Idle’s lifelong fixation on comic craft began in his teenage years, when he saw “Beyond the Fringe,” the seminal British comedy stage revue that acted as a precursor to both “Monty Python” and “Saturday Night Live.”

“I didn’t know you could laugh at the monarchy, at religion, at the army, at the war,” Idle said, adding that he immediately purchased the sketch group’s record and learned all their bits.

From that moment, he said, “I wanted desperately to do comedy.”

“I love musical theater. I miss it,” Eric Idle said.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

First with the Cambridge Footlights and later with the Pythons, Idle honed a linguistically-focused style that bridged highbrow absurdity and accessible, pop culture-driven humor. Then in the ’80s, he unlocked an affinity for musical theater while playing Ko-Ko in Jonathan Miller’s “The Mikado.”

Over the years, it became an established tradition that Ko-Ko rewrite his patter song, “I’ve Got a Little List,” to keep the operetta’s satire topical.

When Idle penned his own rewrite, he recalled thinking, “Woof, I like this.”

“It made me realize that I could write funny songs quite quickly,” he said. That epiphany in turn led him to meet with John Du Prez, who became the composer for “Spamalot.”

Idle and DuPrez wrote some 40 songs for the musical, many of them at a small studio in the Valley which they dubbed Killer Rabbit Studios. The idea was to compose a show that even those who weren’t “Monty Python” fans would enjoy, with hints of romance and sincerity absent from the source material.

Famed stage and screen director Mike Nichols made judicious cuts, Idle said, though occasionally changed his mind.

In an April 23, 2004, journal entry published in Idle’s 2024 book “The Spamalot Diaries,” the comic writes: “Mike also confesses to a dislike for the Knights of Ni, but when we act it out together, i.e. I say ‘Ni!’ and he pretends to be scared, it gets us both laughing uncontrollably and he is now convinced that it works.”

“I learned so much,” Idle said as he reminisced about those early years engineering the musical, which has appeared twice on Broadway and won three Tony awards during its inaugural run, including for best musical and direction. “I think it was the best fun of my life.”

The current “Spamalot” tour coming to the Pantages on Tuesday through April 12 remains a farce “lovingly ripped off” from “Monty Python” and featuring all the classic bits — flying cows, killer rabbits and the Lady of the Lake — but revamping its stage production with updated scenic and projection design by Paul Tate dePoo III. With Josh Rhodes directing, the new show brings a fresh take on the 2023 Broadway revival.

Idle said he’s especially excited to host a Saturday matinee attended by students from the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center, which provides performing arts education to South-Central L.A. youth.

Each “Spamalot” production at the Pantages has been great, Idle added, but with all the upgrades, this one is “smashing.”

And it comes to L.A. at a critical time when joy is hard-fought, he said.

The Broadway revival of “Spamalot” opened in 2023 at New York’s St. James Theater.

(CJ Rivera / Invision / Associated Press)

“People really love this show because it makes you happy,” Idle said. “And these are the times when we need it really badly, because somehow, we’re being oppressed all the time.”

Despite his English roots, Idle after living in the U.S. for several decades is firmly entrenched in the country’s politics. As he’s watched the Kennedy Center drama unfold and arts infrastructure unravel, he said sitting among laughing audiences has been a balm — for himself and many others.

“It always goes well in a Republican war,” Idle observed about his show. “We opened during Bush and Cheney, when all these people were going off to war, and [‘Spamalot’] is about going off to war, really, rounding up the knights.”

It helps that the play’s script allows its actors to break the fourth wall and improvise dialogue that more closely speaks to the audience’s present moment.

As Idle talked about his show, he swelled with the same pride he said he has when he looks back on his time with the Monty Python troupe: “it makes me feel so warm towards them.”

“But those aren’t the same people we are now,” he said.

Preexisting tensions among the Pythons boiled over in recent years because of financial disputes, including a 2013 lawsuit over “Spamalot” royalties. Idle has for more than a decade been largely estranged from his former collaborators, but said he prefers not to linger on that fact.

“I think we were good, I really do,” he said, and that made for a great life. “But it doesn’t make you brothers.”

“Monty Python’s Flying Circus” original cast members John Cleese, from left, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Eric Idle pose on a beach.

(PBS / Associated Press)

Even while Idle was still with the troupe, being its only unpartnered writer made him feel distant from them, he said. It’s what he and Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison bonded over when they met.

“He was between two powerful people, and I was between two powerful groups,” Idle said. “So we played not dissimilar roles.”

The pair remained close until Harrison’s death in 2001.

“The worst thing about getting old is you lose all your friends,” Idle said somberly.

He wasn’t ready for Catherine O’Hara to go, nor Rob Reiner, who bade Idle a poignant farewell at a recent L.A. party.

The last thing the beloved director said to Idle was, “Goodnight, I’ll see you next year,” he recalled.

After dinner, Idle slung his Holy Grail-shaped bag — made by his daughter and lined with Spam-printed fabric — over his shoulder and left a voicemail for a friend he regularly jams with in L.A.

“Hey, Alex, I’m just finished what I was doing. I’m down by the Pantages. If you fancy a ding dong, give me a call. Otherwise, I’ll just head home.”

Eric Musselman sat behind a microphone at the bitter end of a bitter regular season for USC, armed only with the same explanations for how a once-hopeful season could come so undone.

There were unfortunate injuries to point to, he said, and continuity issues to contend with. Then there was the pesky problem of Big Ten travel. And at home, well … “Our home court has not been much of a home-court advantage,” Musselman said, after UCLA chants rang out through Galen Center all night.

But none of that rationale, as true or convenient as it might sound, could adequately explain how the Trojans ended up here at their season’s nadir, with seven straight losses heading into the Big Ten tournament, the latest an 89-68 rout at the hands of their crosstown rival.

The seventh of those losses looked strikingly similar to the other six. Once again, USC’s defense collapsed in the second half, as UCLA shot better than 60%. And once again, the Trojans’ streaky shooting and lack of presence on the glass made it impossible for them to keep up.

“Obviously our struggling down the stretch has not been characteristic of our past programs,” Musselman said. “It’s actually been the exact opposite.”

Yet at USC, it’s all we’ve seen through two seasons with Musselman at the helm. The Trojans lost eight of 10 to finish out the regular season a year ago, and at the time, the coach also blamed injuries to their top two guards, Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates, for the collapse.

USC guard Alijah Arenas, right, drives past UCLA guard Skyy Clark during the Trojans’ loss Saturday night at Galen Center.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Injuries proved even more devastating this season. USC was without five-star freshman Alijah Arenas until late January and lost Rodney Rice, its starting point guard, to an injury in November. He referred to his Trojans as “the most injured team in college basketball.”

“It’s not an excuse,” Musselman said. “It’s a fact.”

But there were inexcusable losses along the way, losses that didn’t hinge on one player’s absence — and might’ve singlehandedly changed the conversation over USC’s season. Among them: A second-half collapse at home to Washington, a blown lead in the final minute to Oregon and an unraveling at the hands of Northwestern, which was winless in conference at the time.

Even still, the Trojans might have salvaged their tournament hopes if they found something down the stretch. Instead, the team’s top scorer, Chad Baker-Mazara, was dismissed last weekend. Musselman wouldn’t offer any further comment on that decision. But by Saturday night, USC looked as lost as ever.

“We just have to stay together,” said senior Terrance Williams. “I feel like when adversity hits, sometimes we tend to go our separate ways. We’ve got to just stick together, man.”

It looked, for a brief time, like USC might manage that against UCLA. Even as busloads of Bruins fans descended on Galen Center, turning USC’s arena into hostile territory, the Trojans showed signs of life early on. Midway through the first half, the Trojans had played their crosstown rivals to a tie, 21-21.

Any hope stitched together during that stretch came apart just a few minutes later, though. USC hit just four shots the rest of the half, while UCLA hit 10 of 12 at one point. For the final 4:40 before halftime, the Trojans didn’t pull down a single rebound.

Arenas would do his best to drag USC back from the brink. He scored 13 in the second half and 20 overall. During one spurt, the freshman put up eight points in less than four minutes, cutting UCLA’s lead to 11.

But the spark was brief. The Bruins came firing back, led by Donovan Dent, who basically took a blowtorch to the Trojans’ defensive plans. After scoring a season-high 30 points against USC in their last meeting, Dent tallied 25 in the rematch.

“We had a problem staying in front of Dent,” said forward Jacob Cofie. “Eleven for 15, that’s unacceptable.”

That was just the start of USC’s issues. But as its season continues to descend further into disaster, Musselman assured that things were still moving in the right direction ahead of Wednesday’s game against Washington in the conference tournament.

“We feel this is an NCAA tournament team if we were healthy,” Musselman said. “We have no doubt that it was — or would be.”

Except now, we’ll never know for sure. And after a seventh-straight loss and a second straight season left spiraling, hypotheticals could only carry USC and its coach so far.