Monty Python

On the other side of the Atlantic, Spike Milligan, of The Goons, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus transfer surrealism into the audio and visual mediums. Surreality sizzles in lines like ‘No, its Inspector Neddie Seagoon, late of the eighteenth century and part inventor of the steam-driven explodable hairless toupee,’ 48 from The Goons radio show, broadcast from 1952 – 1960, and in the Python team's absurd, logic-lampooning skits, juxtaposed by Terry Gilliam’s surreal animations. As its inheritors, they embellish the tradition of British surrealism, 12 ably imitating and expanding upon Dylan Thomas’ antics at the hugely successful International Exhibition of Surrealism in 1936, where, ‘While one lecture was going on, constantly interrupted by the ringing of a bell, Thomas walked through the rooms offering boiled string in teacups and politely asking, “Weak or strong?”’ 49