Near the end of a documentary about Monty Python that was shown at the Ziegfeld Theater on Thursday, Terry Jones, one of the members of that influential British comedy troupe, describes the awkwardness that invariably results when all five living members of the group are assembled. “It’s as if we were always waiting for one other person to arrive,” he says in the film.
This is followed by an admonition from Terry Gilliam, who warns that fans do not really want to see the comedy group reunite — they just want to be young again.
After the film concluded, the Monty Python founders appeared at the theater for a brief reunion that seemed engineered to prove those very points.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Gilliam, as well as Eric Idle, John Cleese and Michael Palin, were all on hand to promote the new documentary, “Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyer’s Cut),” a six-part history that IFC will begin showing on Sunday, and to receive a lifetime achievement award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
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