Who are the ‘Time Bandits?’

Press, 17 June 1982, Page 14

Who are the ‘Time Bandits?’

Who are the “Time Bandits”. who will be invading the Westend tomorrow? Where do they come from and how much do they cost? These are some of the still unsolved questions ... Who or what are these creatures — timeless, yet always late; immortal, yet destructible; capable of inter-galactic, inter-cosmic travel, yet unable to tie their own shoelaces? All that is known for certain is that they helped God create the world: first in the Trees and Small Shrubs Department; then, after the unfortunate creation of the Pink Bunkadoo, in the lowlypaid recesses of the Repairs Department (putting fins back on dolphins, repainting rainbows etc.). After this, the history of

the “Time Bdndits” is less clear but they appear to have been given the job of cataloguing and resealing small holes which had appeared in Time and Space (both of which God had rushed through late on a Friday). Then they vanished - . No-one, least of all the Supreme Being, would have worried except that it was discovered that they had taken with them the priceless map of the time-holes. With their reappearance millions of yedrs later in an English schoolboy’s bedroom began their brief but wild career as Time Bandits, chased by The Supreme Being in and out of 10 centuries, and lured on to near-death and near-disaster by the fortes of Evil, they, were; only .saved by a hairs-

breadth from totally destroying themselves and the world. After this they disappeared back to Creation and have not been heard of since. But they could reappear at any moment, so for those of you who may hear strange rumblings coming from your bedroom cupboard at the dead of night . . . “Time Bandits” also is an extraordinary creation of the British writer-director team of Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam. Gilliam directed “Jabberwocky,” and with Palin and four other Pythons, made “And Now for Something Completely Different,” “Monty Python and the HolyGrail” and “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.”