It was fun.
Those are the famous last words of Eric Idle’s sortabiography, ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE.
He’s talking about his life, of course, which has been a rollicking roller coaster since birth, born in the Blitz, destined for the Ritz.
By odd coincidence, Idle was born on his birthday, named plain Eric because his family couldn’t afford a middle name. This didn’t stop Hitler being an Idle threat.
Surviving the Third Reich, he was plunged into English Public School, which, as he describes it sounds like a concentration camp for children.
Looking at the bright side of this part of his life, Idle writes “ I used to be very bitter about my school days, but now I think it was there I learned everything I needed to survive in life. I got used to dealing with gangs of males and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances while being smart at the expense of authority. PERFECT TRAINING FOR Python.”
ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE has ambidextrous page turning capabilities by a well thumbed nose in a book kind of way that moves at the speed of life.
From Footlights Cambridge to Flying Circus, television, movies and Broadway, Idle has not been idle in his quest for becoming a comedy idol.
There’s an enormous amount of name dropping – a megaton of nomenclature, an avalanche of appellation, a tsunami of sobriquet – and that’s all part of the fun of the book. People on the bright side of life are fascinating and ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE is peopled with fascinating colleagues and contemporaries, from George Harrison to Harrison Ford.
In the chapter Cinema: Half Sin, Half Enema, Idle muses that he often found that bad movies are much more fun to be on than god ones, then goes on to recount his experience on Yellowbeard.
ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE has been Eric’s subconscious motto in life and the song has earned him a motza but he refuses to license it to advertising agencies. He says you’ll know he’s dead or destitute if you hear it in a car commercial.
Pay and gain Idle-oratory buy (sic) purchasing ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
You’ll whistle through it.
