The University Revues

                a) The 'Oxbridge mafia'

        Oxford and Cambridge both have a long tradition of revues, but probably is it even stronger in Cambridge than in Oxford. An event of significant importance was the creation in 1883 of the Cambridge University Footlight Club. The first shows were in the form of musical comedies, but in 1919, the first revue appeared, called "Reconstruction".

        Membership was limited to men and therefore, female impersonation became a necessary art, at least until 1932 when women were included in the cast for the first time. But the result was such a disaster that the next revue was called "No More Women", and since then women seldom performed in the revues.

        Up to the 1960's, the club was rather élitist and new members had to be proposed by existing members and would be invited to perform at an audition. Only those thought to be suitable would be allowed to join. At the end of each university year, the actual Footlights revue would be mounted for a two-week run, in the Arts Theatre at Cambridge and would usually tour in Oxford and eventually be presented as one of the unofficial entertainments mounted on the 'fringe' of the Edinburgh Arts Festival in August. Then the performers would separate to take up their intended careers or continue in comedy and indeed many of them became famous comedians.

        Oxford also had a tradition of revues and smoking concerts and - though Cambridge always seemed to be more in the limelight - Oxford produced very talented comedians like Alan Bennett for instance. In Oxford the two major organizations were the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the Experimental Theatre Club, but the real counterpart of the Footlight Club in Cambridge appeared when Bennett, together with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook, all of them studying in Oxford assembled to create the revue Beyond the Fringe. The show was performed in Edinburgh and then went to London, Cambridge, Brighton and was on the whole a real critical success. The revue was in a satirical tone even if - like the Pythons later - none of the writers had an indignant nor anarchic approach to the world. This is something particular to this generation of comedians, the 'Oxbridge Mafia', educated either in Oxford or Cambridge, coming from middle-class families and having nothing really to complain of.[1]

        All the members of Monty Python, with the sole exception of the American Terry Gilliam, were educated either in Oxford or Cambridge and they all belonged to this generation of student performers referred to as the 'Oxbridge Mafia'.

        John Marwood Cleese the eldest Python was born on  27. October  1939, at Weston-Super-Mare. He was tall even as a child and he claims that he developed his sense of humour to fend off any teasing by his classmates. He spent five years, from 1953 to 1958, at Clifton College, getting A levels in Physics, maths, and chemistry. He then taught at his old preparatory school for two years while waiting to go to Cambridge's Downing College. There he began studying law, but was invited to join the Footlights his very first year there, thus putting an end to his parents' dreams of him becoming a sollicitor.

        Graham Chapman was born in Leicester on 8. January 1941. A policeman's son, he initially decided on a career in medicine.

        It was, however, his love of comedy and his admiration of the Cambridge Footlights Society that led him to study medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, even if his ambitions were, at least at first, rather modest. He wrote in his autobiography : "I was glad that while waiting for written confirmation, I had been accepted by two London teaching hospitals - more realistic goals for a Melton Mowbray Grammar-School oik."[2] Even if he kept up his medical studies and eventually indeed became a doctor, he was invited to join the Footlights at the same time as John Cleese, after mounting his own cabaret.

        As for Eric Idle, he was born at Harton Hospital, South Shields on 29. March 1943. He lived in Oldham and Wallasey before being sent to boarding school in 1952. Deciding to major in English, he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1962 and was voted into the Footlights. Two years later, he was elected president of the Footlight Club.

        On the other hand Terry Jones and Michael Palin were educated in Oxford. Born on February 1, 1942, at Colwyn Bay, North Wales, Terry Jones attended the Royal Grammar School in Guilford. Studying history, he went to St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1961. He was finally attracted to the theatre scene and began acting in various revues at the Edinburgh Festival.

        Michael Palin, the son of an engineer, was born on 5. May 1943, in Sheffield, Yorkshire. He began attending Birkdale Preparatory School in 1948, where he made his first dramatic appearance as Martha Cratchit in A Christmas Carol and fell off the stage. In 1957 he attended Shrewsbury School before majoring in history. Then he began studying at Brasenose College, Oxford in 1962 where he wrote and performed his first material at the Oxford University Psychology Society Christmas Party. He began acting with the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the Experimental Theatre Company where he first met his future writing partner ; Terry Jones.[3]

        Thus, the five British Pythons-to-be all studied either at Oxford or Cambridge in the early 1960's, that is to say at a time when the theatre tradition was booming in the two major university towns of England, with the advent of this new generation of writers and performers of the 'Oxbridge Mafia'. They undoubtedly benefited from the evolution of the concept of the writer-performer that occurred at that time. The unofficial schools of cabaret and revue that flourished at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the early Sixties produced a new generation of writer-performers that had the intelligence of the former and the authority of the latter.

        What is more, and as far as the Pythons are concerned, the conflict that always existed between Oxford and Cambridge created a reciprocal emulation between the Pythons graduated from Oxford and those graduated from Cambridge. This opposition was probably most obvious between John Cleese and Terry Jones. The former is tall, English, from Cambridge, a figure of authority, knocked about but still retaining some respect for order, and the latter is shortish, Welsh, from Oxford and highly volatile, with a strong desire to get things as he wants them to be. Thus, Cleese and Jones were almost guaranteed to disagree on almost everything, but this did not mean that they cancelled each other out.[4]

                b) Cambridge Circus and Oxford revues[5]

        What was to become the main characteristic of the 'Oxbridge Mafia' comedians along with their inventiveness is the emergence of the satire that they brought into the university revues. David Paradine Frost was to become the leader of this satire movement of the early 1960's at the Footlights. It is precisely at this time that John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle joined the club. Graham Chapman made a particularly nonsensical appearance at the Cambridge Union for the audition. He already had a very critical attitude towards society and in particular towards politicians. He explained :

     "It's a place I abhor, where their up-and-coming politicians go to speak. I've always hated the place. So I went dressed as a carrot, in complete carrot costume [...]. And when it was my turn to make a speech, I said nothing. Just stood there. [...]. And that was my comment on the whole bloody business of people standing up and debating, trying to be clever, and eventually being politicians - fucking mess, they're a load of bloody idiots, and none of them have any social conscience."[6]

        Meanwhile, the rival university also developed its theatrical tradition with - like Cambridge - summer revues that would also be sent to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 1963 and 1964, two important people in the development of the 'Oxbridge Mafia' emerged in Oxford revues - Michael Palin and Terry Jones.

        Terry Jones had become attracted to the theatre scene and he appeared in the 1964 Oxford revue at the Edinburgh Festival and in London. As for Palin, he began acting for the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the Experimental Theatre Company where he met Jones. They both featured in one of the ETC's most notable productions Hang Down Your Head and Die in 1964. They then worked together on several revues before they  left Oxford and began to write professionally for The Frost Report, a David Frost show.

        In Cambridge, in 1963, Chapman, Cleese and Tim Brooke-Taylor went on tour with a revue initially called A Clump of Plinths under the new title of Cambridge Circus. The revues were so good that the number of performances initially foreseen had to be extended on several occasions. Then the run ended in late 1963 and the cast separated. Cleese was offered a job, writing for the BBC.