A medieval musical written as a tribute to Monty Python is preparing to open in Athens, and the two men behind it argue the material speaks directly to the present. Yiannis Kentrotas, who wrote 'The Ballad of a Sensitive Executioner,' and director Michalis Koilakos are staging the piece at the Olvio theatre, where it plays on Mondays and Tuesdays. The show borrows the comic style of the British troupe and sets it in a medieval world of executioners and public punishment. In an interview about the production, the pair explained why they believe blind obedience is rarely as blind as it appears. They went further, arguing that social classes have barely evolved from the arrangements that held in the Middle Ages. For them, laughter is not an escape from that reality but a way of exposing it. The production invites audiences to look for the modern descendants of the executioner in an age that keeps producing them.