If you're a true Monty Python fan, you almost certainly already own the massive complete set of the oddball British comedy team's television series, Monty Python's Flying Circus. Would you also want to pick up the single-disc release that purports to be Graham Chapman's Personal Best? Or is this release really better as an introduction to all things Python? The answer is... sort of.

Graham Chapman's Personal Best occupies an odd position somewhere between homage and best-of collection. Since the late Chapman obviously couldn't choose his own favorite skits, the five other members of the Python troupe chose what they felt were the best or most representative skits from Chapman's work. In this way, the disc (and the other Personal Best collections) seems to be aimed at potential new viewers, offering a slice of Monty Python to get people hooked. But the focus doesn't really seem to be on the comedy material; a substantial amount of time is spent on interviews in between the skits. The other Pythons talk about Chapman's personal and professional life, and discuss what it was like to work with him both on the Flying Circus episodes and on the Holy Grail and Life of Brian films.

This "homage" approach is what makes Graham Chapman's Personal Best rather an awkward production overall. The interview material goes beyond setting up a generally informative context for the clips, touching on even quite sensitive issues, such as Chapman's alcoholism and his homosexuality. If you're a devoted Python fan, this is material that's well worth watching... except that you probably already have all the skits on DVD already, so you'd probably rather just have a full documentary, not just bits interspersed with skits. On the other hand, if you're not a full-fledged fan, you probably aren't sufficiently interested in Chapman to care about the details of his personality and inner conflicts; what you want is the skits. As a result, the interview segments feel like interruptions in what ought to be a "best-of" collection. In this regard, the producers of the DVD have also mishandled the way the skits are presented: many of them are not shown in their entirety. Again, if you're intimately familiar with the skits, an excerpt is just a reminder of the whole thing... but if you've never seen the skit before, it's frustrating to have it cut off and have the program switch to an interview. (This particularly annoyed me with the "Spam" skit.)

The overall quality of the skits presented here is reasonable, but it's interesting to note that even though this is Chapman's best-of, many of the skits included here have Chapman in a supporting rather than a leading role. In particular, whenever Chapman is in the same skit as John Cleese, it's usually Cleese who's leading the skit, with Chapman playing a supporting role. Perhaps it fits in with one of the Python's comments in the program, with respect to Chapman's (excellent) performances as the lead in Holy Grail and Life of Brian: he seemed to excel in giving the rest of the supporting cast the opportunity to give excellent comic performances.

The skits included here are:

The DVD

Video

Graham Chapman's Personal Best appears in its 1.33:1 aspect ratio, as in its original television broadcast. The image looks about the way you'd expect it to look, considering the age of the original source material. It's rather worn-looking, with various flaws, but it's watchable.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack does a solid job of presenting the actors' voices clearly and cleanly. I didn't notice any background noise or other problems with the track.

Extras

An 8-minute section called "Graham Chapman's Personal Second-Best" gives viewers one full-length skit... one that apparently hasn't been shown much, since it's a bit gruesome. It features the Monty Python crew as shipwrecked sailors in a boat, discussing cannibalism, followed by an interlude of Terry Gilliam's rather disturbing animated scenes of cannibalism, and the wrap-up with the completely unrelated (but "clean and decent") skit of the botanically inclined highway robber. In addition to this quite amusing sketch, the special features section also includes a trivia game and a text biography of Chapman.

Final thoughts

Graham Chapman's Personal Best is not a very good introduction to Monty Python, but if you're already a fan of the series, you'll probably find the interviews with the other five Python members to be interesting. I'd suggest this as a rental to Monty Python fans only.