Monty Python Producer Wins Royalties in ‘Spamalot’ Lawsuit

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry, Christopher Sieber and Steve Rosen in the Broadway cast of “Spamalot.”

How many members of the Monty Python comedy troupe have there been? Think carefully before you respond, because an incorrect answer could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mark Forstater, a British film producer who was among those who made the 1975 comedy hit “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” was able to convince a London court that he was not an ex-Python, was not off the twig and had not kicked the bucket, and was entitled to royalties from the musical “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Forstater said in a lawsuit in British High Court that there had been an agreement he would be “treated as the seventh Python” when it came to income from merchandising and other spin-offs of “Holy Grail,” and was thus entitled to one-seventh of the first 50 percent of income from “Spamalot,” the Tony Award-winning musical that is adapted from that film.

The Monty Python troupe is classically regarded as possessing six members: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, who died in 1989. Nobody was expecting the Spanish Inquisition, but Mr. Palin did say in a court hearing last year that the idea of a seventh member “was never going to be accepted by the Pythons,” according to The A.P.

But on Friday a judge ruled in favor of Mr. Forstater, who by his own estimate said he was due more than £200,000 (nearly $300,000).

The A.P. quoted Mr. Forstater as saying that there was “a sadness” about “having to face people who were my friends in court,” adding: “The friendship has gone. Terry Gilliam and I used to share a flat. We go back 51 years.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Forstater said of Monty Python, “I still think they are very funny.”