Monty Python reunion 'unlikely'

Cleese said the cast only meet every few years

Comedian John Cleese has warned a Monty Python reunion is unlikely, despite the release of a new DVD featuring new sketches.

Cleese said the sketches, for a recently released DVD of The Meaning of Life film, were often done remotely.

"It is absolutely impossible to get even a majority of us together in a room, and I'm not joking," Cleese said.

He added: "I don't think we've been in a room together for four years", but said it was not because of bad feelings.

The other surviving members of the group - who started their Monty Python's Flying Circus show on BBC in 1969 - are Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam.

Graham Chapman, one of the original members, died in 1989 from spinal cancer.

Final tour

Cleese, 63, said Palin was currently in the Himalayas, Gilliam was working on a film in Prague, Jones was preparing an English history documentary, and Idle was in Canada on a film project.

"We had all sort of thoughts about doing a final stage tour," Cleese said.

"And then Michael, who is painfully nice, who finds it impossible to say 'No', finally summoned up the courage to say 'No,' at which point Eric became very cross about it."

Cleese, who found fame out of Monty Python with the sitcom Fawlty Towers and the film A Fish Called Wanda, now lives in Santa Barbara, California.