Film material from Monty Python’s Terry Jones donated to BFI National Archive

Film material from the personal archive of Terry Jones has been donated to the BFI National Archive for preservation, the film organisation has said.

The collection includes Jones’ 16mm copies of the Monty Python feature films, a 35mm print of his film adaptation of The Wind In The Willows (1996) and early sketches from series including BBC’s The Late Show.

The donation was announced at an event at BFI Southbank, Terry Jones: The Renaissance Man, hosted by TV programmer Dick Fiddy, with guests including Jones’ writing partner, Sir Michael Palin, and Monty Python actress Carol Cleveland.

Jones, who was responsible for some of the best loved and most quoted lines in British comedy, died at the age of 77 in January 2020.

Sir Michael, 82, who was one sixth of comedy troupe Monty Python, reflected on the work they did together, including their BBC Two anthology comedy series Ripping Yarns, which looked at different aspects of British culture, offering parodies of pre-war stories.

He said: “The great thing about Terry was he was a contrarian. He wanted to do things that people hadn’t done before, look at things the way people hadn’t looked at before.

“And I think that was the thing about history too, and the Ripping Yarns, we wanted to just make a little sort of twist on it. So it made people think about that period and what was going on.”

He added: “It was very, very important to Terry to do something that hadn’t been done in quite the same way before. He would get bored if we were doing something like just writing Ken Dodd jokes.

“But then, once we were doing Ripping Yarns or something like that, that was good, and very quickly, just to say that the great thing about Terry, he was very, very good at plot and form.

“And I would write a lot of silly jokes and things like that, and I would I put a story together, and Terry would create a story out of what we’d done.

“And that story always had a little edge to it. Sometimes it was political. Sometimes it was sort of pro-feminist, whatever.

“There had to be something in there, Terry felt, that needed to be said and wasn’t being said by anybody else.”

The Welsh actor and comedian, who had dementia, directed some of the comedy troupe’s most-loved works, including Life Of Brian.

Cleveland, 83, who played Mrs Gregory in the film, said at the London event: “He was, well you already know, he was a lovely, lovely, lovely man, lovely, kind, sweet and very special.”

She added: “He was just such a delightful, honest, cuddly, cuddly man, and I have these lovely memories of him.”

Also at the event, author Robert Ross spoke about new biography Seriously Silly: The Life of Terry Jones, which will be published on Thursday November 6.

Lisa Kerrigan, senior curator of television at the BFI National Archive, said: “We are delighted to receive this collection of personal prints and film materials from the Terry Jones archive.

“Like many film-makers Terry kept prints and film copies of his work and we are grateful to the Jones family for entrusting the preservation of these to the BFI National Archive.

“They are a testament to all of his many, many talents and will join programmes such as Do Not Adjust Your Set and Monty Python’s Flying Circus that are already preserved as part of the national television archive, as well as the personal film collection of fellow Python Terry Gilliam.”