- Surviving Monty Python stars to reunite for a show in London next July
- Tickets will go on sale on Monday, priced from £27
- John Cleese says show will have some new material, but many old bits
- Monty Python troups produced 45 TV episodes and five feature films
London (CNN) -- It's confirmed: Monty Python isn't quite dead yet -- unlike the Norwegian Blue parrot featured in a famous sketch.
The British comedy troupe will perform live at London's O2 arena on July 1 -- the five surviving stars' first show on stage together since appearing at the Hollywood Bowl in September 1980, the group announced Thursday.
Tickets will go on sale on Monday, priced between £27 ($43) and £90 ($145), with further details expected to be announced on the troupe's website montyphythonlive.com.
Member John Cleese said at a news conference Thursday that the show will have some new material, but it will have many old bits -- some featured in perhaps new ways -- that fans will expect.
All smiles: From left, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and John Cleese will be performing at the O2 Arena in London on July 1.
Terry Gilliam, left, will be designing new animations for the show, but John Cleese said the poor state of his hips and knees would prevent him from performing the "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch.
Eric Idle appears with his fellow Pythons at the Playhouse Theatre in London to announce a comeback concert. "We waited until demand died down" before returning, he joked.
Michael Palin, left, joked that after making eight series of TV travel programs, he'd welcome a Python world tour.
Asked by a Spanish journalist to explain why the Pythons had reformed, Michael Palin said: "No one expected the Spanish Inquisition" -- a reference to one of his sketches.
Cleese, Gilliam and Jones lark about at the news conference.
Monty Python stars announce comeback concert
The "Monty Python's Flying Circus" troupe -- left to right, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Eric Idle -- did far more than simply star in an influential TV series and a handful of movies. Here's what the members achieved outside of their Python careers.
John Cleese, now 74, created and starred in the immortal TV show "Fawlty Towers" in the 1970s and co-founded Video Arts, a company that makes training films. Younger viewers may know him best for his roles in the "Shrek" films (as King Harold), a pair of James Bond films (as Q) and the Harry Potter series (as Nearly Headless Nick). His most recent film role was in "Planes."
Terry Gilliam, who turns 73 on Friday, became a noted film director, best known for "Brazil" (1985), "The Fisher King" (1991) and "Twelve Monkeys" (1995). J.K. Rowling wanted him to direct the first Harry Potter film, but the studio didn't want the famously independent Gilliam. His latest film, "The Zero Theorem," is due for U.S. release on December 20.
Terry Jones, 71, has created TV shows about the Middle Ages, an era on which he's an expert. (He's written two books about Geoffrey Chaucer.) He's also written several children's books and was a regular contributor to UK newspapers during the Iraq war, which he opposed. With songwriter Jim Steinman, he's been working on a rock version of "The Nutcracker."
Michael Palin, 70, has probably spent as much time traveling in the last 25 years as he has acting. Among his projects: "Pole to Pole," "Full Circle" and "Michael Palin's New Europe." His most recent venture was "Brazil with Michael Palin," which came out last year.
Eric Idle, 70, has probably done the most to maintain the Python tradition. He engaged in "The Greedy Bastard Tour" in 2003, which included performances of Python material, and turned "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" into "Spamalot," which won the Tony for best musical in 2005. He also helped create the Rutles, perhaps the sharpest Beatles parody. Last year, he sang his song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" at the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony.
Graham Chapman died in 1989. Before he died, however, he performed material at several colleges and appeared in an Iron Maiden video. Since his death, at least one of his plays, "O Happy Day," has been performed. The Pythons haven't forgotten their colleague: They did a wonderfully uncomfortable routine with Chapman's "ashes" at the Aspen Comedy Festival in 1998, and in 2012, all the Pythons except Idle lent their voices to a film based on Chapman's memoirs.
Monty Python's Flying Circus: Where are they now?
"I remember going to the Royal Albert Hall and seeing Neil Diamond where he got booed in the second half for singing new numbers. People really do want to see the old hits, but we don't want to do them exactly in a predictable way, so it's going to be a mix-up, I think," Cleese said.
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Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and the late Graham Chapman became comedic legends with the creation of Monty Python's Flying Circus in October 1969. They produced 45 TV episodes for the BBC and five feature films together before going their separate ways in 1983.
The shows mostly consisted of a string of barely coherent sketches, often lacking conventional punch lines and loosely tied together by Gilliam's stream of consciousness animations.
Although the TV show ran for only four seasons, it proved a massive cult hit when it was shown in the United States beginning in 1974 -- just as the show was winding up on the other side of the Atlantic.
The five survivors have a combined age of 357, meaning that some of the more slapstick sketches, such as The "Ministry of Silly Walks" could prove difficult for their aging bodies. But there may be more shows, "depending on how long Eric and Mike live for."
Jones paid tribute to Chapman, who died in 1989, saying, "we'll miss him a lot although he will be appearing with us on stage in films."
"We've told (Chapman) that he'll be on. If there's a God, he'll turn up," Idle added.
CNN's Susannah Cullinane, Peter and David Wilkinson contributed to this report.
