OK, so now that Python is done we can get back to the real business of going out and watching comedians who go out and gig all the time. But before I move on I’ll just say a few things about the first Python gig at the O2 as a supplementary no-extra-charge deal following my review of the show in the Standard.

1. The gig got mixed reviews. Of course there were flaws which I alluded to in my review. But I felt that some critics went along determined to find fault. The Pythons are older and slower than they were forty years ago? No shit Sherlock. 

2. Yes, of course the O2 Arena was filled with fans who were going to be pleased just to see the surviving Pythons shuffle onstage together, but there is no getting away from the fact that they did put on a show that felt like a proper event.

3. The Quietus has made an interesting observation that Python now owes more to Spamalot showbiz than it does to the original subversive spirit of the BBC series which, I only realised earlier this year, started on the very mainstream BBC1. These days a similar show would be lucky to get an online pilot.

4. I was too busy watching the show to watch the celebrities in the audience. I gather George Osborne was there, but the only celeb I spotted was Christopher Waltz from Djano Unchained. Presumably he is a mate of Terry Gilliam as he stars in Gilliam's latest movie The Zero Theorem. I am indebted to my esteemed colleague Dominic Maxwell of The Times for the factoid that Waltz appeared in The All New Alexei Sayle Show in the mid-1990s when he was living in London. Here’s proof.

5. I probably enjoyed the show more than a lot of people because I found myself sitting in the second row. Yet even there, almost close enough to touch Michael Palin’s hem, my eyes were still drawn to the video screens stage left and right. You just can’t avoid them these days. I wonder what the view was like from the back of the arena or up in the vertiginous gods.

6. It was a strange experience because usually in comedy you are waiting for a surprise. Here you were waiting for what you expected. The audience wanted the punchlines they knew by heart and boy did they get them. If anything there was a problem with timing because people knew the lines so well they laughed before the likes of Palin and Cleese had finsihed saying them.

7. Updates don’t work. Some of the weakest moments were the attempts at topicality. A Top Gear gag stalled, while Stephen Fry’s cameo was decidedly flat. As for John Cleese bizarrely mentioning the result of the Argentina v Switzerland game earlier that evening mid-sketch, that was just plain weird. Having said that, the sight of Putin in an animation was a nice topical touch and the short film with Stephen Hawking and Professor Brian Cox raised a few chuckles. But overall what the fans wanted was the original sketches and they got them. However…

8…After the gig I couldn’t thinking that all that song and dance nonsense was necessary padding. It was great to see The Argument Sketch, Sit On My Face, Parrot Sketch, Crunchy Frog, the Pope and Michaelangelo discussing the Last Supper, Cheese Shop, Four Yorkshiremen, Gumby, Spanish Inquisition, Ann Elk, The Lumberjack Song, Blackmail, Judges in Suspenders, Albatross, Spam and a few others, but then it struck me. I couldn’t think of many other classics that were missing. Silly Walks was done by dancers because Cleese's legs won't do it and other sketches appeared onscreen from the original broadcast during costume changes. But the Pythons made 45 sketch shows, plus two in German and numerous films. Were there any other classics people felt were missing? Maybe Upper Class Twit of the Year and that's it. As with all TV sketch shows, Python was decidedly hit and miss.  

9. If you didn’t like them then you probably wouldn’t like them now.

10. Some reviews mentioned that a lot of the audience wasn’t even born when the BBC series first went out. I thought the opposite - this was the oldest comedy audience I’d ever seen at a gig. There were a few youngsters, but plenty of strange-looking types looked as if they hadn’t left the house since 1974.