Comics 'too busy' for photoshoot

An attempt to reunite the surviving members of Monty Python has failed - even though it was only for a photoshoot.

Vanity Fair magazine planned to get Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones together to celebrate 35 years of the comedy team.

But they all proved too busy - and now a montage will be put together by computer instead.

Writing in the online diary covering his US tour, Idle (pictured) said: "I thought there was zero chance we'd all get together for it.

"Instead we are to be photographed in different parts of the world and stuck together by computer. Quite a reunion."

"I once surmised that if there was a finite amount of decisions that a group of six people might agree to during a single lifetime, then Monty Python used all of them up during the first 15 years. Now all that's left are the nos."

Meanwhile, Idle's plans for a spoof Merchant-Ivory film called Remains Of The Piano have been shelved after the financing ran dry.

Geoffrey Rush, Anjelica Huston, Billy Connolly, Orlando Bloom and Robin Williams had all agreed to take roles in the parody, but the cash Idle thought he had secured failed to materialise.

Published: 5 Dec 2003