Expect a cast of thousands, costumes that run riot, accents galore, voices that pitch high and low and a surreal landscape with its own peculiar logic.
That, says director Alan Swerdlow, is Pythonesque in short. That, and not discounting a table that has a drama degree.
"I can't keep looking for that one table that everyone wants," says Robert Fridjhon, part of the four-strong cast who are having loads of fun rehearsing this off-the-wall play. It tries to tell the story of the Monty Python creative gang to give modern audiences a feel of the humour while drowning those in the know in nostalgia.
The playwright Roy Smiles conjured up the Goons in Ying Tong - A Walk with the Goons and resurrected the satire of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook in Good Evening, which prompted Pieter Toerien to commission him to complete this zany trilogy with the story of the Oxford and Cambridge graduates John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam, who formed one of the most adored comedy troupes - Monty Python's Flying Circus.
For this one, though, there are only four actors on stage playing both the people and the wild and wacky characters of their imagination. And, according to the director, they were cast for the following reasons: "Theo (Landey) wrote a begging letter. Graham (Hopkins) passed me a desperate note. Robert (Fridjhon) confronted me with compromising pictures and Jimmy (Borthwick) arrived at the theatre with a loaded pistol!"
And that was the tone of the interview with these five creative comic souls as they took time out from the serious business of making a play to catch their breath and simply play.
"We're at the stage where it seems as if we're wading through mud," says the director to a chorus of groans all round.
All of them are Python maniacs, and Jimmy is perhaps the most dedicated of all. "Python has been part of my life," he admits.
With two youngsters, Fridjhon and Landey, joining the experienced Hopkins and Borthwick on stage, age was never going to be an issue. (In Cape Town, Borthwick's roles are played by Johan Baird).
"We weren't trying to re-create the spitting image of the different participants," explains Swerdlow.
What was important was the delivery and the understanding of the Python style, which is both physical and very verbal.
"There wouldn't have been time to teach anyone," says Robert, who was introduced to the Python antics by his parents.
Sitting around shooting the breeze, words of wit fly all over the place and it is clear they are all Python passionate.
The madcap humour is catching as they throw one-liners around, knowing that someone in their circle will catch it and roll on.
As I suggest that I might make mistakes with saying who said what, Theo is quick to ask that the smartest lines be his!
Back to the script. All of them are tickled by the way the Python team played with words and could sit around for hours to pick one for a particular sentence.
"I wondered whether any of those famous rants and riffs were busked," says Swerdlow. Not a chance, though. Every line was carefully weighed and weighted.
Once on stage, it's ensemble work that counts.
"Every laugh line belongs to the cast," says Graham.
It's not an individual show and, if anything, there's a fifth player every night, the audience.
"And it changes all the time," says Theo, who battles those first nights on stage when an audience becomes part of the gig. "I'm not expecting the hilarity and we have to keep the timing going, almost play through the laughter."
Graham is their moral compass, according to Theo. The script, they agree, is rude but never gratuitous.
"I was, in fact, surprised," says Graham. "It could've been worse."
But audiences will know what to expect from a Monty Python sketch and they don't expect any trouble.
Jimmy decrees that when it comes to playing drama or comedy, the odds are even. Yet, he does concede, one can get away with the odd lapse when it comes to snot en trane. Comedy is something completely different.
"Tragedy," remarks Swerdlow, "is emotional. Comedy plays on an intellectual level and it works in terms of specific rules. In that sense it is much harder."
And on that note, they're back on the stage, ready to go at it again. They have bought into the concept.
It's like the director says, an intellectual game and the team is constantly testing one another's skills with all systems go.