Tickets for what is being called the final ever Monty Python live show go on sale today at noon. It will conclude a run of ten nights at London's O2, with the first night having sold out in 43.5 seconds and the next four within an hour.

The organisers have put paid to hopes that the show would expand to other countries. "The Pythons had hoped to take up some of the many offers to perform at arenas all over the world," read a statement, but "individual commitments to other projects over the next three years has made this impossible."

It will be the first time the Python troupe have performed on stage together since 2009, when they held a 40th anniversary reunion at the Ziegfield Theatre in New York. But where that was a modest staging, this will be an extravaganza that will likely hark back to their legendary shows at the Hollywood Bowl and elsewhere.

Talking to Greg James on Radio 1 yesterday, Michael Palin said: "It'll probably be the last time we go on stage together again... until the next one. When we did our first tour we called it the First Farewell Tour, so you can't believe us at all. But seriously, there are no plans to do any more, we've all got other stuff to do. It'll be the last one for a very long time – probably 2050.

"It'll be quite a test of us old geezers, but we'll have medical attention, doctors and nurses will be there," he joked. "It'll be fun... We've selected the material we're going to use. A lot of the rest of the thing is going to be production: we've got dancers, we've got songs, things that have to take place while we're all off doing our changes. We're all playing about ten different characters, and it takes time to change when you're 73."

Yesterday the Pythons also released a new song, The Silly Walks Song, their first original material since 1999. It's taken from Monty Python Sings (Again), a remastered and extended version of their 1989 album Monty Python Sings, set for release in May.

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