Inside Joke: Monty Python's Terry Jones + screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail January 21, 2010

SF Sketchfest Presents

Inside Joke:
Monty Python's Terry Jones
In conversation with Carl Arnheiter
35th Anniversary screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail

SF Sketchfest welcomes legendary Monty Python member Terry Jones for an in-depth onstage conversation and screening of one of the greatest comedies of all time, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Inside Joke, hosted by Carl Arnheiter, is a conversation about the craft of comedy. Think of it as a cross between Charlie Rose and This Old House, without the constant stream of interruptions or power tools.

Best known as part of Monty Python, Jones and the other Pythons got together in 1969 and wrote and performed Monty Python's Flying Circus until 1974. Jones co-directed the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam in 1975 and directed Monty Python's Life of Brian in 1979 and Monty Python's Meaning of Life in 1981, which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. He directed Personal Services (1987), and in 1989 he wrote and directed Erik The Viking. He wrote, directed and played Toad in The Wind In The Willows (1995) which won the Chicago Children's Film Festival and the Wisconsin Children's Film Festival. He also wrote the screenplay for Jim Henson's Labyrinth.

He has presented numerous TV documentaries: The Crusades (BBC 1993) Ancient Inventions (Discovery, 1997) Hidden Histories (Discovery, 2002), Medieval Lives (BBC 2004) and Barbarians (BBC 2006). His first children's book Fairy Tales, published in 1981, has been translated into six foreign editions and adapted for television and radio. The Saga of Erik the Viking won the 1984 Children's Book Award. Nicobobinus was awarded a Silver Seal by the Parents' Choice editors; Fantastic Stories won the Smarties Prize 1992; His has a new series of books: The Knight and the Squire, The Lady and the Squire and The Tyrant & The Squire. The Lady and the Squire was short-listed for the 2002 Whitbread Prize.

Jones wrote Chaucer's Knight in 1981 since when it has been reprinted numerous times. He frequently lectures on the late fourteenth century in universities in Britain, Europe and the United States. His book Who Murdered Chaucer? was published in 2003 & his article Was Richard II a Tyrant? was published in Fourteenth Century England ed. Nigel Saul in 2008.

Terry Jones's War On The War On Terror was published January 2005 by Nation Books, New York, and has been published in France and Scandinavia though not in Britain.

Jones co-wrote the libretto and directed Evil Machines, his first foray into the world of opera, based on a collection of his short stories, which premiered in Lisbon in 2008. He is currently working on a short opera with Anne Dudley for the Royal Opera House, London.

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