Idle, Eric

1943 - He was born on the 29th day of March this year in South Shields, Tyne & Wear, England. He wrote and performed as a member of the internationally renowned British comedy group, Monty Python.

1965 - Idle became Footlights President in this year.

1973 – His earliest solo work was his own BBC Radio One show, entitled Radio Five (pre-dating the real Radio Five station by eighteen years). This ran for two seasons from this year to 1974.

1978 – The Rutles' "documentary" film All You Need Is Cash was released, written by Eric Idle, with music by Neil Innes. He appeared in the film in the role of "Dirk McQuickly" (the Paul McCartney character of the group), as well as the main commentator.

1986 - He provided the voice of Wreck-Gar in Transformers: The Movie.

1987 – He took part in the English National Opera production of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado, in which he appeared in the role of the Lord High Executioner.

1989 - Idle received good critical notices appearing in projects written and directed by others - such as Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen in this year, alongside Robbie Coltrane in Nuns on the Run in 1990 and in Casper in 1995.

1994 – He appeared as Dr. Nigel Channing, chairman of the Imagination Institute and host of an 'Inventor of the Year' awards show in the three-dimensional film Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which has been an attraction at Walt Disney World's Epcot since 1995 and at Disneyland since 1998.

1995 – He voiced Rincewind the "Wizzard" in a computer adventure game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

1996 – He reprised his role as Rincewind for the game's sequel, and composed and sung its theme song, "That's Death".

1997 – He took the lead role in the film Burn Hollywood Burn (released 1998) which was almost universally savaged by critics and was nominated as 'Worst Picture of the Decade' in the Golden Raspberry Awards (known as the Razzies)

1999 – From this year until 2000, he played Ian Maxtone-Graham, owner of The Gate, on the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan.

2003 – He was also known for writing novels like “Hello, Sailor”, which he wrote way back in 1975. He wrote books like for this year, he wrote “The Greedy Bastard Tour Souvenir Program”.

2004 - He recorded a protest song of sorts, the "FCC Song" in which he lambasts the US Federal Communications Commission for fining him $5,000 for saying the word 'fuck' on national radio.

2005 - Idle wrote the book and lyrics and co-wrote the music for Spamalot which opened on Broadway in this year.

• "At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted."