Tonight sees the surviving members of the legendary comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus reunite on stage at London’s O2 Arena for the first of 10 live shows.

Monty Python Live (Mostly): One Down Five To Go will bring Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam back together to re-visit classic sketches, songs and silliness.

The sixth member of the team, Graham Chapman, died in 1989 but fans have been told to expect an appearance from him all the same.

It is the first time such a get together has been attempted in 40 years and tickets for the whole run which is from July 1-5 and then July 15-20 sold out in 43 seconds.

Read the reviews of opening night here

West London, and in particular Ealing, could almost be called Pythonland in honour of the sheer number of sketches and outside filming that was done there between 1969 and 1974.

The show was recorded at the BBC Television Centre in White City which made the boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Hillingdon, and Ealing very handy for setting sketches. The fact they had no budget to go anywhere more far-flung also helped when choosing locations!

Back in 1999 Michael Palin, who last year opened a photographic studio in Ealing, actually revisited some of these boroughs to film a short documentary and award blue plaques to the locations which became famous - even if at the time nobody knew where they were.

So in an attempt to provide something completely different, here is a brief factfile of the links between our quarter of London and the men who brought the Dead Parrot to life (well made it pine for the fjords at least!)

John Cleese from the classic Monty Python sketch The Ministry of Silly Walks

* One of the all time most famous of the Python routines was the Ministry of Silly Walks which started with John Cleese leaving a shop in Thorpebank Road, Shepherds Bush, passing a house where Mrs Crump (Terry Jones) had to fend off the unwanted attentions of a team of gas cooker salesmen.

The shop in question is now a house while the remainder of the road looks largely the same as it did 30 years previously.

* Along the borough a way takes you to Hurlingham Park in Fulham which was the setting for the annual Upper Class Twit of the Year event. Here was where competitors with unforgettable names like Vivian Smith-Smythe-Smith took on Nigel Incubator-Jones and Gervaise Brook-Hampster in challenges such as Kicking the Beggar and Reversing into the Old Lady.

John Cleese plays the role of commentator and ends the sketch by saying “there’ll certainly be some car door slamming in the streets of Kensington tonight.”

* During one show which began in a field where an art critic (Palin) was strangling his wife the camera panned to show a newly married couple running along the High Street of Ealing Broadway and into the famous John Sanders store which is now a Marks and Spencer. There they encountered a salesman (Chapman) who put a bag on his head when you said 'mattress' and another (Idle) who had to stand in a tea chest and sing Jerusalem to get him to take it off again.

* On a rare occasion when a location was acknowledged by name Graham Chapman was interviewed by John Cleese as he attempted to scale the north face of the Uxbridge Road. However, it was in fact South Ealing Road that was used for the hilarious sight of Chapman in hard hat and climbing ropes inching his way along the gutter of what is now such a busy road he would be run over in seconds if it was attempted today.

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* Acton High Street was the setting for a scene where a vicious team of Hell’s Grannies caused Eric Idle’s reporter to fall down an open manhole cover.

The road became something of a regular star for Python shows as did Lammas Park Road, a place, to quote Palin ‘so dull that almost anything that happened seemed exciting’.

This was the setting for the emergence of Mr F G Superman who secretly led a double life as the heroic Bicycle Repair Man. This was a sketch which also featured a country lane under the Heathrow flightpath and a launderette in Acton.

* Down at Teddington Lock is where you will find the place where one of the funniest of all the sketches, the infamous Fish Slapping Dance was shot. It was here that Michael Palin happily skipped back and forth gently hitting John Cleese in the face with small sardines before being on the receiving end of a clout from a giant carp which sent him plunging into the river Thames.

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* Back in 2007 cast members Terry Jones and Eric Idle were on hand in Trafalgar Square to help 2,000 people attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the largest number of people using coconuts to ‘clip clop’ along to the famous Python song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from the film Life of Brian. The stunt was held to mark the opening of Spamalot the musical based on the other Python film The Holy Grail.

At one point the West End show starred noted comedian and creator of The Kumars Sanjeev Bhaskar who has his own West London connections as he was born in Ealing and grew up in Hounslow.

If you couldn’t get tickets for the shows, look out for the final show on July 20 when comedy channel Gold will be broadcasting the entire three hour performance live.

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