John Cleese. The Golden Skits of Muriel Volestrangler EHRS & BAR (1984) Cleese wrote or collaborated on sketches for several TV shows, Monty Python’s Flying Circus being the one best known in North America. This sampling demonstrates his skills, but as with most printed scripts, it helps to have seen at least some of them performed. Tones of voice, pregnant pauses, furrowed brows etc don’t show in print. The book is great fun, with repeated reminders of the absurdities hidden in what we think of as normal behaviours.
Most of the time, it’s habit and context that makes us behave as we do. Switch to different contexts, and the habitual behaviours become absurd. Consider the flying sheep sketch: the observers behave as “observers”, and so see nothing odd about the sheep’s attempt at flying. Other writers have used to the same trick to show how habits can be lethal. I recall a Christie story whose plot turns on the insight that we habitually see a “policeman”, not a human being with passions.
Much of what we think of as our (and other people’s) personality is merely the behaviour expected of us in some specific context. (See Leo Ross’s “attribution error”). We play the roles we feel are expected of us, which include expectations of our idiosyncrasies. One of the blessings of comedy and satire is that it reminds us of how much of what we think of as free choice is merely rote reaction. Recognising that may help us achieve a few degrees of autonomy.
The Dead Parrot sketch is _not_ included. ***
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