Monty Python Codexery

The Cheese Shop

The cheese shop with no cheese, from Flying Circus.

The "Cheese Shop" is a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch first shown in episode 33, "Salad Days", on 30 November 1972. John Cleese plays a well-spoken customer trying to buy cheese from Michael Palin's proprietor, Mr Wensleydale, whose shop turns out to stock none at all, not even cheddar.

Quick Facts

First aired
30 November 1972 (episode 33, Salad Days)
Writers
John Cleese, Graham Chapman
Cast
John Cleese, Michael Palin

Facts from the source article.

Background

Cleese and Graham Chapman came up with it after a day filming at Folkestone Harbour, when a seasick Cleese fancied some cheese and they joked about buying it at a chemist's. Chapman wrote the sketch with Cleese, who was unsure of it at first, and most of the Pythons were unmoved at the read-through until Palin laughed so hard he fell to the floor. It was reworked for the album The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief and last performed at Monty Python Live (Mostly), as a coda to the Dead Parrot sketch. The Python programming language's package index is nicknamed the Cheese Shop after it.

More in Groups & Organizations

Elsewhere in Monty Python

Spotted an error? Know more?

Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced

Comments

Loading…
Open in the interactive codex →