Last night in Trafalgar Square, thousands of Londoners gathered together to break a rather silly world record: that of the largest number of people in one location playing coconuts at the same time.
The ‘coconut orchestra’ record was set last year in New York, at the one-year anniversary of the Broadway production of Monty Python’s Spamalot. Last night it was broken, smashed even, in an event arranged by the producers of the West End production of – you guessed it – Monty Python’s Spamalot. The atmosphere was electric. Python fans of all ages, but mostly in their 30s and 40s, revelled in this opportunity to take part in something genuinely ‘Pythonesque’. Some of them dressed up. There was to be a free screening of after the record attempt. Ni! Ni! A wonderful occasion then, and all the fun of the fairly amusing, highly organised, super-cynical PR stunt.
Near the beginning of the event, when people were still registering and collecting their coconuts, Ken Livingstone popped by and took the opportunity to point out how much better London is than New York – not only was New York not hosting the Olympics in 2012, it also wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of the Congestion Charge. Plus it was miles away. And full of Americans. Therefore, there was no way in hell London wasn’t about to trounce that Rotten Old Apple at banging shells together. It was a foregone conclusion. And of course it was.
Shortly after Ken escaped the throng and was ferried back to the lap of decongested luxury, a middle-aged African man began to harangue the people handing out the coconuts. He was angry about the exploitation of the coconut-producing countries. He was perfectly serious. He was ignored. Some say he was quietly bundled into a van and shot. He wasn’t. They lied.
Then came the moment of truth. The record attempt. But there were rules. Rather stringent rules. The man from Guinness was there of course, to make sure they were adhered to. As it happened, they weren’t adhered to at all, and the coconut cacophony which was supposed to be avoided was not. But it didn’t matter. This was PR. And nothing was going to ruin it.
The most exciting moment of the evening was probably when the two Terrys took to the stage in the record attempt build-up: Terry Jones, who seems to have actually become Mr Creosote, and Terry Gilliam, who in the name of good-natured anti-Americanism claimed now to be British. As their faces and chins appeared on the enormous screen in front of Nelson’s Column, thousands of Python fans held their breath – surely now something amazing was about to happen, some of the old magic was about to be recreated. Nah. Just a couple of gags about nuts and about how incredibly wealthy they both are. Ho ho ho. Ni!
It was all very safe, and very smug, and very self-satisfied. The only thing reminiscent of how dark and dodgy the Pythons used to be was the accidental juxtaposition of the giant inflatable foot and the limbless Alison Lapper. But this was no evening for dark and dodgy. At least not in a potentially funny way.
Of course what made the whole thing that little less tolerable and that little less honest was the fact that they tied the whole thing in with St George’s Day. You see, this actually wasn’t a PR stunt. It was actually about celebrating English culture. Or as the guy said into the microphone when the record was broken and the cast of Spamalot finally left the stage, ‘And if you haven’t seen Spamalot yet, make sure you go and see it immediately.’
Spam, spam, spam, spam. Spam, spam, spam, spam….
