Terry Jones visits Prague
The Welsh-born comic, writer and film director Terry Jones is one of the legendary Monty Python comedy team - on Monday he came to Prague to launch a mini-festival of Monty Python and Python-related films at Prague's Aero cinema. While films such as Life of Brian have been popular around the world for a couple of decades now, it is only in the last few years that Czechs have had a chance to acquaint themselves with the Python team's unique brand of humour. Radio Prague's Ian Willoughby met Terry Jones and began by asking him what had brought him to Prague.
"Well, I'm here for a festival of Python films they're putting on at the Aero kino and I'm just introducing one of my movies this evening - and it's an excuse to come to Prague, quite honestly."
Terry Jones has been to Prague several times since he first filmed here in 1992, making an episode of Young Indiana Jones. What is it about the Czech capital that keeps him coming back?
"Well I wouldn't like to say the beer but I do like Czech beer a lot and it's such a beautiful city and also I really like Czech people - I think they're very delightful and funny people, and it's a good feeling here."
Life of Brian came out in 1979 and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - which is soon to get its first release in the Czech Republic - came out in 1983. How does it feel to have those and other Python films and TV shows find such an appreciative audience in former Communist countries so many years after they were first made?
"It's wonderful really. It's great to feel that these things that we made all that time ago have still got a life and they still go on showing - and if they didn't I suppose they'd just disappear. It's a big thrill really. I think the films are shown in Poland. I've been to Warsaw and Krakow for some Monty Python festivals, where they had students reenacting the Life of Brian on stage before the actual film came on - very curious."
