
Graham Chapman
Actor · 1941 – 1989 · Leicester, Leicestershire, England
Graham Arthur Chapman (January 8, 1941 – October 4, 1989) was an English comedian, physician, writer, and actor and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe. He was also the lead actor in their two narrative films, playing King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Brian in Monty Python's Life of Brian. He co-authored and starred in the film Yellowbeard. Chapman was born in Leicester but was raised in nearby Melton Mowbray. After graduating from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Medical College, he turned down a career as a doctor to be a comedian.
Movies22
Movie7.8AdventureComedyKing Arthur, accompanied by his squire, recruits his Knights of the Round Table, including Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot and Sir Galahad the Pure. On the way, Arthur battles the Black Knight who, despite having had all his limbs chopped off, insists he can still fight. They reach Camelot, but Arthur decides not to enter, as "it is a silly place".
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1975 · 6.6K votes
Movie7.8ComedyBrian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.
Life of Brian
1979 · 5.1K votes
Movie7.3ComedyLife's questions are 'answered' in a series of outrageous vignettes, beginning with a staid London insurance company which transforms before our eyes into a pirate ship. Then there's the National Health doctors who try to claim a healthy liver from a still-living donor. The world's most voracious glutton brings the art of vomiting to new heights before his spectacular demise.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
1983 · 2.2K votes
Movie5.6ComedyAdventureFor years Yellowbeard had looted the Spanish Main, making men eat their lips and swallow their hearts. Caught and convicted for tax evasion, he's sentenced to 20 years in St. Victim's Prison for the Extremely Naughty. In a scheme to confiscate his fabulous treasure, the Royal Navy allows him to escape and follows him, where saucy tarts, lisping demigods and some awful puns and punishments await.
Yellowbeard
1983 · 160 votes
Movie7.2ComedyA collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus skits from the first two seasons of their British TV series.
And Now for Something Completely Different
1971 · 603 votes
Movie4.8ComedyDocumentaryThe Secret Policeman benefit shows for Amnesty International brought together comedy grand masters - from Python and Beyond the Fringe - and performers then relatively unknown, like Rowan Atkinson. Narrated by Dawn French, the programme includes interviews with many of the comedians and musicians who took part: John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Sting, Lenny Henry and many more. The shows and their stars had a huge effect on modern British comedy. There are few comics today whose careers have not been heavily influenced by the anarchic and surreal humour of these events.
Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball?
2004 · 3 votes
- MovieDrama
The 1960's counter culture limped into the 1970s dragging with it a legacy of social confusion, dependency on drugs and promiscuity. In STAGE FRIGHT, shot in Baltimore, the era is satirized in a story of a store-front theatre and its company of diverse, rootless characters.
Stage Fright
1989
Movie5.8ComedySir Guy Grand, the richest man in the world, adopts a homeless man, Youngman. Together, they set out to prove that anyone--and anything--can be bought.
The Magic Christian
1969 · 49 votes
Movie5.0DocumentaryA documentary about the portrayal of Adolf Hitler in popular culture.
Hitler: The Comedy Years
2007 · 1 votes
Movie7.4ComedyMonty Python perform many of their greatest sketches at the Hollywood Bowl, including several from pre-Python days.
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
1982 · 189 votes
Movie6.3ComedyMusicFollowing the success of the 1979 show and the financial benefits accruing to Amnesty from the spin-off movie, TV special and record albums – Cleese, Lewis and Walker planned the next show to be a more spectacular event. Cleese focused on broadening the comedic talent to be presented at the show. In addition to the Amnesty show stalwarts drawn from the Oxbridge/Monty Python/Beyond The Fringe orbit, he invited newcomers such as Rowan Atkinson’s colleagues from the BBC TV show Not the Nine O'Clock News including Pamela Stephenson and Griff Rhys Jones; comedian Victoria Wood and regional comic Jasper Carrott. Lewis secured a return appearance by Billy Connolly and a debut appearance by "alternative" comedian Alexei Sayle who Lewis had recently discovered and was managing. Building on the success of Pete Townshend's 1979 appearance Lewis recruited other rock musicians to perform at the 1981 show including Sting, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Donovan and Bob Geldof.
The Secret Policeman's Other Ball
1982 · 6 votes
Movie7.2ComedyTV MovieSteve Martin presents selected sketches from "Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969)". It's the well known sketches, though the parrot sketch is not included. Steve Martin has some funny comments on the Pythons.
Parrot Sketch Not Included: Twenty Years of Monty Python
1989 · 24 votes
Movie6.0ComedyDramaFresh-faced young Michael Rimmer worms his way into an opinion poll company and is soon running the place. He uses this as a springboard to get into politics and in the mini-skirted flared-trousered world of 1970 Britain starts to rise through the Tory ranks.
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer
1970 · 18 votes
Movie5.9AnimationComedyJohn Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam pay tribute to their late Monty Python colleague Graham Chapman in this hilarious, 3-D animated adaptation of Chapman's brazenly fictionalized life story.
Movie6.5MusicWembley Stadium hosts a concert featuring stars from the fields of music, comedy and film, in celebration of the 70th birthday of imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela. Highlight of the evening is the one hour live performance of Dire Straits feat. Eric Clapton.
Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
1988 · 2 votes
Movie7.2ComedyFantasyA group of down-and-out accountants mutiny against their bosses and sail their office building onto the high seas in search of a pirate's life.
The Crimson Permanent Assurance
1983 · 130 votes
MovieDocumentaryA look back at the origins of the ground breaking BBC comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Movie6.6ComedyTV MovieA pre-Monty Python mockumentary, written by and presented by John Cleese, that provides tips on learning how to irritate people.
How to Irritate People
1969 · 45 votes
Movie7.7DocumentaryComedyDiscover how six seemingly ordinary but supremely talented men became Monty Python, sketch comedy's inspired group of lunatics who turned such unlikely sources of inspiration as Spam, dead parrots and the Inquisition into enduring punch lines. This entertaining documentary includes interviews with members of the troupe, as well as home movies, photos and rare recordings from Monty Python's early years.
Monty Python: Before the Flying Circus
2008 · 6 votes
Movie7.7DocumentaryA documentary about the making of the controversial Life of Brian and the surrounding accusations of blasphemy.
The Secret Life of Brian
2007 · 43 votes
MovieDocumentaryWhen EMI refused to produce Monty Python's Life of Brian, George Harrison founded Handmade Pictures so that he could see the film. This is the story of him and Handmade Films.
Movie7.1ComedyDocumentaryIn March 1998 in Aspen, Colorado, the surviving members of the Monty Python team – John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin – shared a stage together for the first time in 18 years. Even more remarkably, Graham Chapman was there too....in an urn! The occasion for this reunion was the US Comedy Arts Festival Tribute to Monty Python, hosted by Robert Klein in front of a live audience.
Monty Python: Live at Aspen
1998 · 19 votes
Series15
TV6.9ComedyNewsA late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels. The show's comedy sketches, which parody contemporary culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, who usually delivers an opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, and features performances by a musical guest.
Saturday Night Live
1975 · 527 votes
TV5.3Talk ShowChat show hosted by Terry Wogan, featuring live studio interviews with famous and notable personalities.
Wogan
1982 · 7 votes
- TV5.1
The BBC's flagship cinema review TV program featuring reviews of new releases, news items and interviews. The title of the program changes each year to incorporate the year of broadcast.
Film '72
1971 · 8 votes
TV8.3ComedyA British sketch comedy series with the shows being composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines.
Monty Python's Flying Circus
1969 · 743 votes
TV5.0DocumentaryThe story of the big names that have shaped the musical genres, plus an occasional stopgap for the new rock 'n' roll - comedy.
Legends
2006 · 1 votes
TV8.0A mostly live weekly entertainment show starring Cilla Black and her special guests.
Cilla
1968 · 3 votes
TV5.0ComedyA series of benefit shows staged initially in the United Kingdom to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. The shows started in 1976 featuring popular British comedians but later included leading musicians and actors. The Secret Policeman's Ball shows are credited by many prominent entertainers with having galvanised them to become involved with Amnesty and other social and political causes in succeeding years.
The Secret Policeman's Ball
1976 · 1 votes
TV9.0ComedyThe Big Show is an American comedy-variety-musical television series produced and broadcast by NBC for several months in 1980. The series aimed to revitalize the moribund variety television genre, which had been in a downward spiral since the cancellations of The Ed Sullivan Show and The Carol Burnett Show a few years earlier. The Big Show took its title seriously, using a huge stage set and filling a 90-minute time-slot, with at least one two-hour installment broadcast. Although the first broadcast received high ratings, poor reviews and low ratings of succeeding episodes resulted in the program being cancelled after only a few months. The series nonetheless was nominated for six Emmy Awards, winning for Outstanding Costume Design. Regular performers included Joe Baker, Graham Chapman, Mimi Kennedy, Shabba-Doo and Pamela Myers. Guest hosts included Steve Allen, Nell Carter, David Copperfield, Geoffrey Holder, Gary Coleman, and Sid Caesar. Skaters who performed in the show included Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, John Curry, and Toller Cranston.
The Big Show
1980 · 1 votes
TV4.0ComedyThe comedy event of the year took place in April 1986 at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London. All those taking part gave their services free in order to support the famine relief camp in Umbala in the west of Sudan. Tonight Omnibus, in collaboration with Charity Projects, presents the best comic talents in Britain today. Among those appearing: Rowan Atkinson, Frank Bruno, Kate Bush, Graham Chapman, Billy Connolly, Ronnie Corbett, Paul Eddington, Ben Elton, French and Saunders, Stephen Fry, Bob Geldof, Terry Gilliam, Lenny Henry, Howard Jones, Terry Jones, Hugh Laurie, Hank Marvin, Rik Mayall, Michael Palin, Cliff Richard, Pamela Stephenson, Spitting Image, Midge Ure, The Young Ones.
Omnibus Presents Comic Relief
1986 · 1 votes
TV2.0DocumentaryThis series is presented by self-confessed Python nut Hugh Bonneville, each show with a group of five famous comedians remembering their favourite Python moments. Each guest chooses a sketch (or two) and it's played with their comments..
Monty Python's Best Bits (Mostly)
2014 · 1 votes
TV7.6DocumentaryComedyA 2009 television documentary series in six parts that covers 40 years of the surreal comedy group Monty Python, from Flying Circus to present day projects such as the musical Spamalot. The series highlights their childhood, schooling and university life, and pre-Python work. The series featured new interviews with surviving members John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, alongside archive interview footage of Graham Chapman and interviews with several associates of the Pythons, including Carol Cleveland, Neil Innes and Chapman's partner David Sherlock, along with commentary from modern comedians.
Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)
2009 · 40 votes
TV7.5ComedyA groundbreaking, splendidly silly, surreal sketch comedy series written by and starring The Goodies' Tim Brooke-Taylor, Monty Python's Graham Chapman and John Cleese, and comedy legend Marty Feldman.
At Last the 1948 Show
1967 · 17 votes
TV5.7ComedyAnimationA series of six outrageous one-hour specials showcasing the groundbreaking comedians.
Monty Python's Personal Best
2006 · 5 votes
TV7.6ComedyMonty Python's Fliegender Zirkus consisted of two 45-minute Monty Python German television comedy specials produced by WDR for West German television. The two episodes were first broadcast in January and December 1972 and were shot entirely on film and mostly on location in Bavaria, with the first episode recorded in German and the second recorded in English and then dubbed into German.
Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus
1972 · 14 votes
TV7.5David Berglas is psychological illusionist and mentalist. In the UK he caused a sensation with his Channel 4 series The Mind of David Berglas, aired in 1986, where he interviewed and entertained celebrity guests including Omar Sharif, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Peter Cook and Max Bygraves.
The Mind of David Berglas
1985 · 2 votes