Monty's doubles
1,000 audition for Python movie
A thousand hopefuls turned up for auditions in New York yesterday hoping to win parts in the promised movie about the life of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman.
Many were simply fans, encouraged by the producers’ call for even the inexperienced to attend, and donned the costumes of knights, monsters and transvestite lumberjacks.
Director David Eric Brenner, a self-confessed fan who only one minor film credit to his name, described the auditions as "loony”.
He told Reuteurs: "We've had lumberjacks, and colonels, men painted with full-red body paint with a dead turkey stapled to their shoulder singing show tunes.”
The casting call was for all the Pythons as young men – Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones – plus other famous figures including Keith Moon, Peter Cook, Ringo Starr, Douglas Adams and David Frost.
Auditions have already been held in Los Angeles, and producers promise one in London ‘soon’, though are not forthcoming about dates.
Shooting on Gin And Tonic, which will cover Chapman’s comedy, drinking and homosexuality, is expected to start in London later this year, ready for release in 2005.Published: 17 May 2004
