Neil Innes brings a songwriter’s care to screen comedy. His acting parts are often small, but we rate the combination: a performer who can join the nonsense and supply music worth hearing in its own right.
Fi1m perspective
A singing minstrel is a sensible place to find Neil Innes. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), he takes that part and supplies songs including Brave Sir Robin and Knights of the Round Table. We laughed at the cast’s straight faces, which give the absurdity time to register without anyone insisting on how funny it is. His musical work suits that approach. He writes songs that belong inside the comedy, and there is pleasure in hearing something made with care while everything around it is being so deliberately silly.
That combination was already there in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, with whom he appeared in Magical Mystery Tour (1967). His subsequent Python work used him as both songwriter and occasional performer. Co-creating the Rutles with Eric Idle gave him a larger say in what reached the screen. In The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978), he plays Ron Nasty and writes the Beatles-style songs. Those pastiches are worth hearing even when recognising the resemblance is no longer enough to make us laugh.
In Life of Brian (1979), directed by Terry Jones, he plays a Weedy Samaritan and contributes whistling to Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. It is a modest acting credit, and there is no need to inflate it. Graham Chapman’s Brian gives that film someone worth caring about; Innes’s work is part of the support. We recommend the film warmly, with a reservation about the repetitive chase, but it would be an odd choice for anyone coming chiefly for Innes.
Holy Grail is the better starting point for his particular contribution. Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam’s straight-faced ensemble gives his songs a suitable home, though a few of the sketches stay too long. Innes also plays a monk and a peasant: even with the songwriting, he remains a performer taking his turn among the others. Follow it with the Rutles if the songs are what stay with us.
Biography
Neil Innes was an English musician, songwriter, comedian and actor. He first came to prominence as a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in the 1960s, writing their hit single "I'm the Urban Spaceman" (1968) and contributing to the Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour (1967).
Innes became a frequent collaborator with the Monty Python troupe, writing songs and appearing in sketches for Monty Python's Flying Circus and in their films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979). He was often referred to as the "seventh Python". With Eric Idle he co-created the Rutles, a Beatles parody project that included the mockumentary film The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978), in which he played Ron Nasty.
Innes was born on 9 December 1944 in Danbury, Essex, and died on 29 December 2019.
