Sketches had been performed before

EXCLUSIVE

The 'unseen' Monty Python sketches due to be premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe are not as much as a revelation as had been claimed.

Huge publicity greeted this week's announcement that London-based Sketch Club were to perform three Graham Chapman scripts for the first time ever.

Jim Yoakum, literary executor of the Graham Chapman Archives, had claimed: "These sketches have never been seen outside the confines of Graham's desk drawer."

But at least one of the sketches has already been seen, during a month-long production in Los Angeles.

The sketch Who's A Pretty Boy Then?, about a gay budgie, formed part of a Monty Python tribute show Owl Stretching Time, which ran at the Santa Monica Theatre in November and December last year.

Tom Onkle, one of the performers in the Santa Monica production said the sketch opened their second act.

He told Chortle: "A good deal of time and money was spent on a world premiere of Graham Chapman's sketches and it is disconcerting to see it erased from history.

"It was a high-profile show, and you can really truthfully only have one world premiere."

Yoakum admitted the sketch had been "redrawn" for the Edinburgh show, telling Chortle: "Yes we've reworked some things, not majorly, but tweaks."

Onkle also has a copy of the Busy Messiah sketch, in which a Christ-like figure gets fed up of being bugged by believes - redolent of similar scenes in Life Of Brian. However, this skit, written for the cinema, was only performed once as the troupe felt they couldn't make it work on the stage.

That this material had been seen before came as news to Brian West, half of the team behind Sketch Club.

He said: "If we find out that the Chapman Archive have been yanking our chain, we'll obviously cut the sketches from the show immediately."

Owl Stretching Time was one of the original titles considered for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Graham Chapman died from cancer in 1989.

Website for the original LA production

Published: 20 Jul 2002