Monty Python Live! shows (minus the animation and Neil Innes songs), alongside a selection of lesser performed sketches plus some new comedy pieces written specially for the book. Monty Python Live! Monty Python Live! is a book detailing the various live performances of the Monty Python team between 1971 and 1980. Edited by Eric Idle, the book was released in 2009 as part of the team’s 40th anniversary celebrations and features recollections from surviving members John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, alongside archive interviews with Graham Chapman. Also contributing are Python regulars Carol Cleveland and Neil Innes, promoter
Monty Python who was not a Python. Despite this, Davidson did not appear in any Python-related media subsequent to series 2, though footage of him was shown on the documentary "Python Night – 30 Years of Monty Python". Stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard, a devoted fan of the group, has occasionally stood in for absent members. When the BBC held a "Python Night" in 1999 to celebrate 30 years of the first broadcast of "Flying Circus", the Pythons recorded some new material with Izzard standing in for Idle, who had declined to partake in person (he taped a solo contribution from the US).