Known for his elaborate wordplay and musical numbers, Idle composed and performed many of the songs featured in Python projects, including "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".

After Flying Circus ended, Idle created another sketch show Rutland Weekend Television (1975–1976), and hosted Saturday Night Live four times (1976–1979).

[1] His mother, Norah Barron Sanderson,[2] was a nurse,[1] and his father, Ernest Idle,[2][3] served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, only to be killed in a road accident while hitchhiking home for Christmas in December 1945.

[8] His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and bringing up a child, so when Idle was seven, she enrolled him in the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder.

"[9] Idle has stated that the two things that made his life at school bearable were listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes and watching the local football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Idle had already refused to be senior boy in the school cadet force, as he supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and had participated in the yearly Aldermaston March.

[12] He starred in the television comedy series Do Not Adjust Your Set co-starring his future Python castmates Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

Idle also appeared as guest in some episodes of the television series At Last the 1948 Show, which featured Cleese and Chapman in its principal cast.

[13] Idle wrote for Python mostly by himself,[14] at his own pace, although he sometimes found it difficult to present material to the others and make it seem funny without the back-up support of a partner.

[17] He was responsible for the "Galaxy Song" from The Meaning of Life and "Eric the Half-a-Bee", a whimsical tune that first appeared on the Previous Record album.

The band became a popular phenomenon, especially in the U.S. where Idle was appearing on Saturday Night Live – fans would send in Beatles LPs with their sleeves altered to show the Rutles.

In 1978, the Rutles' mockumentary film All You Need Is Cash, a collaboration between Python members and Saturday Night Live, was aired on NBC television, written by Idle, with music by Innes.

Actors appearing in the film included Saturday Night Live's John Belushi, Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, as well as fellow Python Michael Palin, and also real musicians of the 1960s such as former Beatle George Harrison, as well as Mick Jagger and Paul Simon.

[19] In 1986, Idle provided the voice of Wreck-Gar, the leader of the Junkions (a race of robots built out of junk that can only speak in film catchphrases and advertising slogans) in The Transformers: The Movie.

Even though he has gone on to his own work – dozens of films, plays, TV shows, albums, books and screenplays – he is perhaps the most active standard-bearer for the group.

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

However, his own creative projects – such as the film Splitting Heirs (1993), a comedy he wrote, starred in and executive-produced – were mostly unsuccessful with critics and audiences.

In 1999, he reprised the role in the short-lived second incarnation of the Journey into Imagination ride at Epcot, replacing Figment and Dreamfinder as the host.

Due to an outcry from Disney fans, the attraction was reworked in 2001, reintroducing Figment into the ride while also retaining Idle's role as Nigel Channing.

In 1995, Idle appeared in Casper opposite Cathy Moriarty and voiced Rincewind the "Wizzard" in a computer adventure game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

[17] The stage performances consisted largely of music from Monty Python episodes and films, along with some original post-Python material.

In 2005, Idle released The Greedy Bastard Diary, a book detailing the things the cast and crew encountered during the three-month tour.

The medieval production tells the story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table as they journey on their quest for the Holy Grail.

The cast included Idle, Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Eddie Izzard, Jane Leeves, Emily Mortimer, Jim Piddock and Tracey Ullman.

[26] In December 2016, Idle was the writer and co-presenter of The Entire Universe, a "comedy and musical extravaganza with the help of Warwick Davis, Noel Fielding, Hannah Waddingham and Robin Ince, alongside a chorus of singers and dancers", broadcast by BBC Two.

[27] In 2020, it was announced that Idle would adapt his script for Spamalot into a feature film for Paramount Pictures, with Nicholaw directing and Dan Jinks producing.

Idle, his fellow Pythons, and assorted family and friends performed the song at Graham Chapman's memorial service.

With help from BBC Radio 1 breakfast show host Simon Mayo, who gave the song regular airplay and also used the chorus within a jingle, it became a hit, some 12 years after the song's original appearance in Life of Brian, reaching number 3 in the UK charts and landing Idle a set on Top of the Pops in October 1991.

[33] The following month Idle, accompanied by opera singer Ann Howard, sang the song at the Royal Variety Performance.

The show was revised and expanded for a tour of Australia and New Zealand in 2007, including two sell-out nights at the Sydney Opera House.