Monty Python’s Eric Idle talks with Paula Bennett about touring, royalties and life in America - Ask Me Anything

Eric Idle is heading to New Zealand with a new stage show called "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live!"

For more than 60 years, Eric Idle has been fully immersed in the world of show business. In that time, he’s done it all, from television to theatre, movies to music. The former Monty Python star has toured the world and even picked up a Tony Award for Spamalot, which he wrote and co-composed.

Now 81 and having survived a cancer diagnosis several years ago, Idle is showing no signs of slowing down. His latest stage show, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Live!, is bringing him back to New Zealand for three shows at the end of October.

Speaking to Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast Ask Me Anything, Idle said the show was “like a one-man musical”, with a band he said he created using “artificial stupidity” as he goes through some of his biggest hits.

He will be sharing stories from his years in the industry and memories of some of his departed friends, including George Harrison – who famously re-mortgaged his house to pay for Monty Python’s Life of Brian – and Robin Williams.

Idle said Williams’ death in 2014 was a complete shock. His friends did not know he had Lewy body dementia or the extent of his depression.

“[Python] were doing the O2 [venue in London] at the time and I kept saying to him, ‘Come on, we want you on stage. I’ve written a bit called Celebrity Blackmail. I want you to come on with a bag on your head and people have to guess who it is.’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t want to be on stage.’ And I should have twigged at the time but we were producing, I was directing the show, we were on stage and I never really associated that with him being in danger.

“Of course, that’s what happens with suicides because they hide their depression and it is a way out of a real torment. And even if we managed to save him at the time, he could only have been locked up in a straitjacket.”

While Idle has done it all, one reason behind his continuing work is that the success of Monty Python and other projects does not provide enough royalties to live on.

Idle said big companies had found ways around paying them.

“Nobody pays music royalties any more because [Rupert] Murdoch went offshore. He went up into the satellite and said, ‘Oh, the laws don’t apply.’ YouTube steals everything. Spotify pays nothing. So poor old musicians get nothing, they don’t get any of their royalties.

“You’ve got the streamers like Netflix, they don’t tell you how much money they’re making or how many people are watching. They just take it. So, you’ve got a few billionaires and it’s not being spread around. And I think that’s something that the next lot need to sort out, really, because a lot of it’s theft.”

He praised Taylor Swift for drawing attention to this after her music catalogue was sold without her consultation.

“I think she deserves everything she gets because she’s been so brave and courageous to go and say, ‘No, I’m going to re-record all my songs, you cannot take my music, you may not do this,’ and I think that a few more people need to come out about that.”

Idle has spent much of the past 40 years in America, saying that he and his wife, who is from Chicago, made the choice after questioning whether they wanted to raise their daughter American or British.

They settled for America, specifically California – “It’s much nicer to drive your kid to school,” he joked – but said that, with the rise of school shootings, they wouldn’t have made that decision today.

He will be avoiding the US election with his tour this year, and politics is something he tends to avoid in shows, with younger comedians better placed to call it out.

That’s partly because the politics of today is too much even for a Python.

“Some things just beggar belief and the idea that some of these people say what they say would be just comedy back in the day when we were writing, and no, that’s too far.”

Listen to the full episode for more from Eric Idle on his life, career, his cancer diagnosis, and how he’s kept his career thriving for six decades.

Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.