The problem with the guys from Monty Python is, you never quite know when they’re joking. I’ve recently been reading a lot of guff in the news about how John Cleese has supposedly fallen out with Eric Idle: they seem to be rowing about the appointment of Terry Gilliam’s daughter as Python Manager. The thing is, I don’t think it’s really clear whether they are having a proper, full-blown row, or whether they are just being sarcastic and calling each other names in the jocular-yet-intelligent way they always have. Is the bitterness real, or merely a pretence?

Of course, the print press seems to be reporting it as a major dispute between the two men, as if they now genuinely loathe eachother: Yet, it may be my imagination, but I can’t help detecting a touch of humour in their tweet exchanges, as if they are just trying to wind everyone up by exchanging insults. In many of the interviews the Pythons have done together, they often take the mickey out of one another- this apparent dispute is probably just an extension of that playful, feigned animosity. After all, I refuse to believe that two such highly intelligent men and lifelong friends could fall out over something so insignificant. Mind you, if that is the case, then either the press has been resoundingly duped, or are deliberately trying to make things seem more dramatic and fractious than they really are.

More to the point, though, I can’t help wondering: if the Python guys are having financial issues again, could it give rise to them doing another live show, as it did in 2014?