Live from the Grill-O-Mat

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Live from the Grill-O-Mat is the fifth episode of Series 2 of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It aired on 27 October 1970 and was recorded on 10 September 1970. The episode includes sketches such as Blackmail, Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things, Accidents Sketch (Prawn Salad Ltd.), and The Butcher Who is Alternately Rude and Polite.

The program opens with John Cleese, appearing to speak live from a table at the Grill-O-Mat snack bar in Paignton, then the opening credits roll. Cleese acts as the host who links the different sketches together.

In the Blackmail sketch, Michael Palin plays a TV host who tries to blackmail viewers by showing them compromising footage. The address for paying the blackmail is “Behind The Hot Water Pipes, Third Washroom Along, Victoria Station.”

In the Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things sketch, Sir William (Graham Chapman) is the President of the Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things. Cutler (John Cleese) is the Staffordshire delegate. They argue about the idea of putting one thing on top of another, and the society ultimately dissolves. Sir William goes to leave for a pipe break, finds he’s on film and surrounded by film, and the group ends up tunneling out and wandering into a surreal sequence that includes a journey through a digestive system and other odd escapades.

Eric Idle then appears as an innocent‑looking but accident‑prone man who enters a place called Prawn Salad Ltd. He’s blamed for a rapid series of disasters—broken mirrors, a toppled bookcase, a stabbed maid, a dying handyman, a heart attack, a collapsing roof, and a building explosion. The running gag is that Idle’s character seems guiltless, even as everyone else accuses him.

Michael Palin plays a customer at a butcher shop who is trying to buy a chicken and stuffing, but is confronted by the rude, then polite, behavior of Idle’s butcher. Palin’s character tries to ignore the rude remarks but eventually challenges the butcher.

Between sketches, Cleese’s narrator character from the Grill-O-Mat reappears to link the segments. The episode is preceded by a short animation featuring two identical U.S. Civil War generals—photographs of Benjamin Butler—who joke about hunting piggy banks.