Pythons on Parade

YELLOWBEARD (1983)

ERIK THE VIKING (1989)

A parody of Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach and pirates in general, YELLOWBEARD was co-written and starred Graham Chapman.

SEA-FARING travesty YELLOWBEARD was a long-gestating project from the warped brain of Graham Chapman, at the prompting of Keith Moon who wanted to play Long John Silver. YELLOWBEARD wastes a checklist of British and American comedians - and a distinguished plethora of actors - for a film that was clearly more fun behind the scenes than anything on screen (apart from Marty Feldman, who died of a heart attack on the last day of filming in Mexico). Its mix of old school British humour, Mel Brooks lampoonery and Monty Python surrealism is impossible to gel; bloodthirsty pirate Yellowbeard (Chapman) is in jail for tax evasion, and just as he is about to be released, the British Secret Service (led by Eric Idle) convinces him that 100 more years has been added to his sentence, in the hope that he will escape in desperation and lead them to his treasure.

Behind his elaborate beard, Chapman attempts to carry the can in a manically wide-eyed performance. Yet because of the overall utter banality, even the swashbuckling and attempts at humour seem out of sync ("no woman ever slept with me and lived.") Relying on bringing a limp script to life by turning up in costume in the name of cliché can only result in an unfunny mess, as performers wave their swords and look for inspiration. It's no wonder that John Cleese - who appears as Blind Pew only out of loyalty to Chapman - described it as "one of the six worst films made in the history of the world." One laments that Chapman's career was one of unrealised talent, never providing a masterpiece beyond his Python association, unlike writing partner Cleese's FAWLTY TOWERS, Michael Palin and Terry Jones' RIPPING YARNS, or Terry Gilliam with BRAZIL.

Bearing little resemblance to Terry Jones' children's book The Saga of Erik the Viking, neither the knockabout humour or heroes journey is particularly spontaneous for Jones' film version, ERIK THE VIKING. 

Six years after YELLOWBEARD Terry Jones made his own adventure, ERIK THE VIKING. Questioning Viking preferences for raping and pillaging, Erik (Tim Robbins) suffers further guilt over the death of Helga (Samantha Bond). Existing in the age of Ragnarok, the young warrior forms a crew of misfits to travel to Hy-Brasil to seek the Horn Resounding, which will take them to Asgard and awaken the Gods. Yet these men have differing ideals, from Christian missionary Harald (Freddie Jones) to Blacksmith Keitel (Gary Cady), the latter secretly opposing Erik's plan for peace as it would be bad for business. Similarly warlord Halfan the Black (John Cleese) is also on Erik's tail, in a chomping ship of skull-wearing henchmen.

Although not on the disastrous level of YELLOWBEARD, ERIK THE VIKING is a pretty nondescript production, again wasting a host of talent. More Gilliamesque than Pythonesque, at least Jones is enjoying himself as Arnulf, the King of Hy-Brasil. Living like ancient Greeks, Arnulf's sunlit land is extremely hospitable and the centre of the most overt humour, especially Princess Aud (Imogen Stubbs)'s magic cloak of invisibility. Eartha Kitt is also memorable as the prophet Freya - seductively convincing Erik to embark on his voyage of discovery to escape the "great winter" - and Antony Sher makes a perfectly slimy Loki. 

The Road to Unreason

SIR HENRY AT RAWLINSON END (1980)

Thespian and alcoholic Trevor Howard is in his element as Sir Henry Rawlinson, Vivian Stanshall's most famous comedy creation.

MUSICIAN and wit Vivian Stanshall was best known for his work with the surrealist comedy/art revue group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and his outlandish exploration of the British upper classes at Rawlinson End. This latter concept first appeared as a track on the Bonzo's contractual obligation album Let's Make Up and Be Friendly, then as thirteen radio broadcasts on The John Peel Show as an individual performer, before evolving into a fully-fledged LP in 1978. This anarchic movie version - filmed in sepia monochrome and running a shade over seventy minutes - follows drunken aristocrat Sir Henry (Trevor Howard)'s attempts to exorcise the ghost of his brother Hubert (played by Stanshall). Hubert was accidentally killed in a duck-shooting incident whilst escaping trouser less from an illicit liaison. Apparently, this ghost will not rest until it is supplied with another pair of trousers; until then, the spirit walks the corridors, accompanied by his possessed stuffed dog Gums.

Bigoted imperialism is expertly brought to life by the cinematography of Martin Bell, as if a fading photograph. The eccentric family members, mad servants and unhinged acquaintances - players include Patrick Magee, Sheila Reid and Suzanne Danielle - all seem to exist in a world that isn't quite Monty Python, The Goons, Peter Cook or anything else, more a haphazard set of observations on the absurdity of being British. Incoherency is evident both in its sequences (Sir Henry is shown blacked up on a unicycle wearing a tutu, billiards played on a horse) and its dialogue ("generally speaking when I eat something I don't want to see it again," "I don't know what I want, but I want it now!")

Stanshall's behaviour was never straightforward. He once held a reporter captive for three hours until he would listen to his favourite records, and visited the East End with Keith Moon dressed up as Nazis.

A heavy drinker who also suffered from depression and a tranquiliser addiction, Stanshall was full of contradictions: both pleasant and threatening, even his voice could be posh (an order from his tyrannical father) or sport a cockney accent. At the time of his death - at fifty-one due to an electrical fire at his Muswell Hill bedsit - Vivian was developing a project about Loch Ness, and Warner's had approved a second Sir Henry album. Generously championed by Stephen Fry as "one of the most talented Englishmen ever," Stanshall's legacy is one more of infrequent flashes of oddness, an absurdist world which was too fragmented and silly for its own good.

Come and Get It

THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN (1969)

Raquel Welch and Ringo Starr share a moment on set.

BASED on Terry Southern's irreverent novel, THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN is an anti-establishment black comedy/satire so laboured to the point of self-nihilism. Eccentric billionaire Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers), together with newly adopted homeless person Youngman (Ringo Star), bribe people with vast sums of money for "educational" whim. The narrative that every man has his price is spread thinly over a series of jaw-droppingly unfunny skits and cameo appearances. These include cutting out a portrait's nose at a Sotheby's auction - much to the astonishment of director Mr Dugdale (John Cleese) - and approaching the Oxford rowing team - one played by Graham Chapman - to purposely ram the Cambridge crew. The film ends with Guy and Youngman, having returned to the park where the film opened, bribing the park warden to allow them to sleep there.

Working from an endlessly rewritten screenplay by Southern and director Joseph McGrath (with additional material by Sellers, Cleese and Chapman), the sketches are often homoerotic: there is a homosexual boxing match and a Hamlet striptease. The only amusement is of a dog show where a new breed is feeding on the contestants. One wonders that if the climactic vat of urine, blood and excrement - liberally sprinkled with money - is a statement for the production itself (the inclusion of a newsreel Vietcong execution is bewildering and contemptible). The stars are particularly abundant on the good ship Magic Christian, on its maiden voyage from London to New York: Christopher Lee as a vampire, a whip-wielding Raquel Welch, and Yul Brynner in drag singing "Mad About the Boy" to a suitably unimpressed Roman Polanski.

Peter Sellers bribes Spike Milligan into eating his own parking ticket in one of many heavy-handed meditations on capitalism and human vanity.

Amongst the mess we find British stalwarts swallowing their pride (Hattie Jacques, John Le Mesurier, Dennis Price, Wilfred Hyde-White et al), and Starr is disposable behind Sellers' foppish onslaught (allegedly imposed by Sellers himself). At least Cleese is seen honing his petulance, and the unfilmed Cleese/Chapman contribution - The Mouse Problem - became a classic as part of the second episode of MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS. A presage of Furry Fandom, the sketch is an obvious parody of the secretive lives and social condemnation of gay men, the piece mimicking techniques used in serious television documentary exposés.

Back in Black

VAMPIRA (1974)

The cover to the MGM Limited Edition R1 DVD of VAMPIRA from 2011. Upon its theatrical release in the States, the production was re-christened OLD DRACULA by AIP, to cash in on Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

THIS Jeremy Lloyd-scripted travesty from World Film Services is not so much unfunny but downright insulting. Starting at Castle Dracula - now open to public tours - an aging Count (David Niven, fighting to keep his dignity) and his manservant Maltravers (Peter Bayliss) welcome a spooky photoshoot ("Most Biteable Playmate") from Playboy's London entourage, headed by Pottinger (Bernard Bresslaw). The Bunnies unwittingly give blood so the vampire can restore life to his beloved consort Vampira, who has been in a coma for fifty years after losing her immortality to an anaemic peasant. Finding the triple-O blood group to resurrect the Countess, the transfusion backfires as one of the models is black, a façade which Vampira adopts (as Teresa Graves). Hoping to reverse this mishap, The Count and Maltravers track down the girls in London, using Playboy feature writer Marc Williams (Nicky Henson) as their hypnotised pawn.

VAMPIRA mixes the British sex comedy with Hammer horror and Blaxploitation, but there is no flesh or blood on display. Now awakened, the titular character develops a bi-sexual lust, enjoying her environment and skin colour; not only does this new-found vigour mean her using phrases like "out of sight" and "jive turkey," she also goes to watch BLACK GUNN, dances lasciviously, and is now too energetic for the Count to handle. Unfortunately, this is undermined by a number of dismal dialogue choices, particularly when Maltravers tries to explain Vampira's change of appearance ("you don't think, Sir, the deep freeze wasn't working properly and she's - well - gorn orf?")

In the prolonged party sequence, Count Dracula and Maltravers attempt to swing well past the height of the Swinging London era.

More positively, the cast includes female luminaries Veronica Carlson and Penny Irving as Playboy Bunnies, Luan Peters as Pottinger's secretary, and MONTY PYTHON regular Carol Cleveland as a damsel in distress who is inexplicably helped by The Count. The standout however is Linda Hayden as Castle Dracula's disgruntled German student Helga. Although her Teutonic accent is as questionable as her Gallic attempts in CONFESSIONS FROM A HOLIDAY CAMP, Hayden excels in an almost cameo role, bitten and transformed into a white gowned, frizzy-haired succubus. Initially aiding the dinner guests, Helga is then ceremonially dispatched in an upright coffin in a macabre parody of THE GOLDEN SHOT. 

Voyage of the Greasy Bastard

RIPPING YARNS - THE CURSE OF THE CLAW (1977)
ALEXANDER ARMSTRONG'S REAL RIPPING YARNS (2014)

RIPPING YARNS parodies the golden age of empire, and won the 1980 Light Entertainment Award presented by BAFTA; in THE CURSE OF THE CLAW, gothic horror comes to 1926 Maidenhead.

RUNNING for nine BBC budget-busting episodes between 1976 and 1979, Michael Palin and Terry Jones' RIPPING YARNS showcased different characters and settings each time, but always against a backdrop of archetypes from boy's own papers. Made when the memory of British empire-building was fading under the swath of punk-rock, the show was initially developed under the vague guise of "The Michael Palin Variety Show." Palin baulked, and preferred to write longer, more cohesive narratives with Jones that took them away from the Pythonesque norm and into territory explored by such stand-alone FLYING CIRCUS episodes as THE CYCLING TOUR from 1972. RIPPING YARNS is infectiously silly; TOMKINSON'S SCHOOLDAYS, for example, depicted the horrors of public school education - such as eluding the school leopard - and WHINFREY'S LAST CASE sees Britain's most famous spy foiling the Germans who want to start the First World War a year early.

THE CURSE OF THE CLAW begins with Sir Kevin Orr (Palin) visited by Captain Merson (Keith Smith), who is leading an expedition to the Naga Hills of Burma with a handful of natives. On hearing this name Orr tells Merson that he grew up in a very strict house and had a secret sweetheart, Agatha, and his only excitement was visiting Uncle Jack (Palin), who had every disease known to man. Uncle Jack had taken a sacred claw from the Hills, but discovered there was a curse; Kevin promises to return the claw, running away and becoming the captain of The Greasy Bastard, a small ship carrying goods between England and Burma. Kevin finds himself attracted to Chief Petty Officer Russell (Judy Loe), and the voyage becomes a paradise that the crew don't want to end. Kevin tries to explain the danger but Russell throws the claw into the sea; the ship explodes and Kevin is the only survivor. Orr, after his parents and Uncle Jack's' death, marries Agatha, and lives happily in his uncle's house until the morning of his sixtieth birthday, when he finds his wife dead and the claw lying next to her. The horned digit then nightmarishly folds back time: his uncle and wife return from the grave, and Kevin and Agatha become children, only to see his father appear to instantly stifle his life once again.

Michael Palin stars as Kevin Orr, anxious to return the sacred Burmese vulture claw to its homeland before his sixtieth birthday, or die.

This "Ripping Yarn of fear, tragedy and terror" was created from two separate scripts: one dealing with black magic (with a healthy nod towards W.W.Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw), the other sexual repression. Like all the stories, THE CURSE OF THE CLAW is filled with colourful supporting characters and here the performances are pitch perfect: Aubrey Morris as naughty servant Grosvenor, and Tenniel Evans and Hilary Mason as Kevin's emotionally suffocating parents ("as soon as the entire human body is covered the better.") Dramatic and numeric errors grate slightly; there is a sense at the beginning that Agatha has been dead for some time rather than just earlier in the day, Grosvenor doesn't recognise a reincarnated Uncle Jack even though he was his servant for many years, and it is revealed that Kevin was born in 1881, the show is set in 1926, but its his 60th birthday. Yet these are disposable errors for what is such a, well, ripping yarn.

As Palin has stated, characters in RIPPING YARNS tread that fine line between British arrogance and madness. Each tale evokes a repressive world that has all but vanished from modern living. British colonialism and the establishment are ridiculed expertly, factors explored in the fine documentary ALEXANDER ARMSTRONG'S REAL RIPPING YARNS. Armstrong interviews Palin and Jones who are both still evidently enthralled about the bygone days of boys adventure stories, but it is also evident that they are also telling a story of lost innocence and the erosion of risk. Away from today's social media, this was a childhood of wonder and national belonging. Exploring the show's inspirations, it is amazing how popular the boy's own papers were, with their character-building topics of public school life, sport, war, hobbies, espionage and outdoor pursuits. They may have been overtly racist in their depiction of scheming, sinister foreigners - a constant threat to the plucky Englishmen - but the articles and letter pages are both hysterical and heart warming (the dire warnings about masturbation et al).

"You'll get your thirty pieces of silver"

FRIDAY NIGHT, SATURDAY MORNING: LIFE OF BRIAN (1979)
HOLY FLYING CIRCUS (2011)

MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN director Terry Jones as Mandy Cohen, mother of Brian, in the comedy troupe's satire of organised religion. The film stands as one of the few that warrants book-length studies on each of its pre-production, making, and aftermath.

MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN caused religious outrage around the world. Against this backdrop, John Cleese and Michael Palin found themselves facing prominent society figures on a television debate in front of a live studio audience. HOLY FLYING CIRCUS - Tony Roche's one-shot BBC4 re-imagining of the controversy - uses at its core the discussion between Cleese/Palin and Mervyn Stockwood/Malcolm Muggeridge, which appeared on BBC2 chat show FRIDAY NIGHT, SATURDAY MORNING. While the build-up to this debate acts as the only real plot strand in the drama, the surrounding scenes are more playful, particularly Darren Boyd's portrayal of Cleese - "a fictional representation of me based loosely on my Basil Fawlty persona" - and an uncanny turn by Charles Edwards as Palin. Consequently there is little consistency to HOLY FLYING CIRCUS, but there are odd flashes of brilliance: after the BBC’s Head of Talks is shown taking cocaine, Cleese and Palin are suddenly turned into puppets manipulated by the other Pythons, sweeping the viewer into an alternate reality. But ultimately HOLY FLYING CIRCUS portrays the discussion with a misguided gravitas akin to David Frost's entanglement with Richard Nixon.

Hosted by Tim Rice, it was the 9th November 1979 FRIDAY NIGHT, SATURDAY MORNING were the actual barnstorming was played out. To argue in favour of blasphemy was broadcaster and Christian Muggeridge, and Stockwood - the then Bishop of Southwark - who appeared in a sweeping purple cassock while spending most of his time gesturing with a chunky cross. In an opening salvo, The Bishop - with notes carefully hidden in his lap - gives a meandering sermon addressed to his audience, before accusing the Pythons of being mentally unstable. Muggeridge begins by dismissing LIFE OF BRIAN as a "tenth-rate film,"and the Pythons seemed shocked by the severity of the attack, especially because all four had met before the show and there had been no hint of the aggression that was to come. As the debate becomes more heated, Muggeridge complains about the ease with which the Pythons "were able to extract humour from the most solemn of mysteries". He says he was upset that the film was, to him, denigrating the one man responsible for all art. What makes the crusader's stance more trite is that Stockwood and Muggeridge later seemed delighted with their flirtation with show business, viewing the exercise as a entertainment performance of their own.

Charles Edwards as Michael Palin and Darren Boyd as John Cleese in HOLY FLYING CIRCUS.

The overwhelming conclusion of the Pythons is that while Palin is agitated and uneasy, Cleese is in his element. Addressing Muggeridge that "four hundred years ago, we would have been burnt for this film. Now, I'm suggesting that we've made an advance," Cleese defends eloquently and with a calm assurance, explaining how LIFE OF BRIAN is consistently labelled as an attack on Christ rather than as a series of satirical observations on closed systems of thought. What is most unnerving is seeing the Pythons having to defend their right to openly question ideas; after this debate, a parody of the discussion appeared on NOT THE NINE O'CLOCK NEWS, involving a Bishop defending his new film - GENERAL SYNOD'S LIFE OF CHRIST - which was accused of being "a thinly disguised and blasphemous attack on the members of Monty Python, men who are, today, still revered throughout the western world."

It is ironic that LIFE OF BRIAN's success as a film is its tight narrative, which is in strong contrast to the normal Pythonesque sketch-driven chaos. Without an episodic structure, characters are allowed to breath, and when the story does deviate, it is only into people that directly affect Brian. It is Python's most rounded and satisfying work, with the People's Front of Judea central to the ongoing religious and political comment; the non-active activists are a consistent joke as they debate, argue, vote and re-debate even the simplest motions. As such they just get further embroiled in talking about - but not acting - on their beliefs. It’s this straightforward blend of satire, religion and politics that makes the misinterpretations and tirade of Muggeridge and Stockwood even more insulting.

Nine Eternities in Doom

THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES (1971)
DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN (1972)

An iconic shot of Vincent Price as THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES. This cult favourite holds the distinction of being the film Who drummer Keith Moon was watching during his drug overdose of 1978. 

SINCE making WITCHFINDER GENERAL, Vincent Price had increasingly become an indigenous part of British productions at a time of declining audiences and stale output. American International Pictures had disengaged itself from further co-projects with Hammer after THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, but AIP was in danger of becoming just as out of touch with its core audience. Music had replaced movies as the premier entertainment for the young, and in July 1970 the BBFC had raised the age limit on X certificates from 16 to 18 years, enabling filmmakers to exploit a more liberal censorship regime and produce more lurid output to lure audiences back into theatres. Although THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES was a return to horror epitomised by HOUSE OF WAX in its Grand Guignol, it chimed with a prevailing mood among disenchanted youth, as Dr Phibes was seen to champion a lost ideal, making a last stand against impersonal capitalism. Additionally, its concept of nine murders in a single story - one per reel - would later become integral to the slasher boom.

This short lived series - both directed by Robert Fuest - is often applauded for giving Price the classic monster role his career had previously lacked, but the two titles can also lay claim to evoking the black humour of James Whale and even Monty Python (in THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES, Inspector Trout (Peter Jeffrey) is addressed as Pike or Bream). This first film sees Phibes - a hideously disfigured musical genius and doctor of theology - enacting an elaborate vendetta against the surgical team whom he holds responsible for the death of his wife Victoria (Caroline Munro), contriving their deaths to accord with the curses inflicted on the Pharaohs by Moses in the book of Exodus. Exactly why Phibes should choose to inflict Hebrew curses is never explained, though their nature would fit his raison d'etre of elaborate murder. This lack of detail is synonymous with the two movies, further illustrated by Phibes' sketchy survival from a car crash, and the origins of his mute female assistant Vulnavia (Virginia North).

Vulnavia (model and artist Valli Kemp) is summoned from the netherworld to aid Dr Phibes' Egyptian expedition in DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN.

As Phibes, Price contrives to tip a wink not only at his horror heritage, but also at his celebrity as an art authority; having drained every drop of blood from Dr Longstreet (Terry-Thomas), Phibes glides out of shot, only to glide back in to tut over his victim's taste in visual artifacts. Yet for its colourful touches and opulent production design, THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES is a shallow experience, undermined by its dramatis personae: the victims are only present as a prelude to their inventive deaths, and there are at least twice as many comedy police inspectors that are strictly necessary. Only Joseph Cotton - as Dr Vesalius - lends any gravitas to his role.

For DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN, the mad doctor is pitted against an adversary of similar cunning and intent, Biederbeck (Robert Quarry), who has been artificially sustaining his youth (which, again, is never fully explained). The film contrives to engineer Phibes' return but not that of Vulnavia (Valli Kemp), who is now represented as an ethereal spirit to be invoked at will. The elegant interiors of the first film are replaced by pastiche - Victoria's coffin sporting radiator grilles of a Rolls-Royce - and the sequel's obsessing over a sacred relic is the derivative stiff of Universal Mummy movies, not for the sophistication of Phibes. However, the film is buoyed by some notable guest appearances, such as Peter Cushing (intended as Vesalius for the first film) and Beryl Reid.

He's Not the Messiah

MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979)

He’s got a very good friend in Rome...
Michael Palin’s star turn as Pontius Pilate.

IN July 1977, Mary Whitehouse – self-appointed guardian of national morals – won a blasphemy libel case against Gay News for publishing James Kirkup’s The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name, a poem which detailed a Roman Centurion’s homo-erotic meditations towards the crucified Christ. This had a personal resonance within the Monty Python camp, as Graham Chapman had helped launch the publication; yet both parties could never have foreseen the deluge when their paths would meet under similar circumstances two years later. The foulest-spoken yet best humoured Biblical epic ever, LIFE OF BRIAN shows that any subject can survive a sardonic tweaking, as long as it is done with intelligence and wit. Religion may be comedy’s last taboo, but the film does not lampoon Jesus Christ, his teachings or his importance as an icon. Less an attack on the Bible itself, it's more a scathing satire on mob mentality and cult ideology.

LIFE OF BRIAN captures the period in Python’s life when the group were at their happiest and most creative. Under the firm helm of Terry Jones, the picture is much more structurally sound compared to the troupe’s first "proper" theatrical release, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, and therefore less faithful to the stream of consciousness spirit of their TV series. It isn't littered with Terry Gilliam animation or plot line tangents, and is a more serious attempt at linear comedy painted on a much broader canvas, with Gilliam’s inventive set design providing a constantly interesting backdrop. Brian Cohen (Chapman), the reluctant prophet, is a simple man constantly mistaken for the King of the Jews. From his birth in a manger right next door to Christ’s, to his unexplained rise as a spiritual emblem for Judea, Brian remains an incorruptible innocent; he is bemused by his contrasting Roman/Jewish ties, confused in love, and foiled by the very spirit of individuality he advocates.

Always look on the bright side of life;
the scene that cemented LIFE OF BRIAN’s infamy.

When LIFE OF BRIAN premiered in New York, the opening salvo in what would become a surreal war of words came from Rabbi Abraham Hecht, who said that the release was "produced in Hell." Hecht’s fear was that the film would weave a corrupting spell over the impressionable minds of young cinema-goers, leaving them with a contaminated view of religion. After the Rabbi’s denunciation, outraged religious leaders in America queued up to vent their spleen, from the Lutheran Council to the reactionary politics in the southern states of the Bible Belt. In Britain, the war against LIFE OF BRIAN was fought a little differently. The Nationwide Festival of Light - a watchdog association working in league with Whitehouse - lobbied the BBFC to refuse a certificate. When the film was passed, the Festival of Light, supported by the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility, began an insidious campaign, circulating anti-BRIAN literature and encouraging Christians to pray for the film’s downfall. When it opened across Britain, local authorities even exploited a loophole in the law through health regulations. Consequently, the film ended up being banned in Surrey, Swansea, Cornwall and East Devon (where councillors refused to even watch it, arguing that "you don’t have to see a pigsty to know that it stinks.")

Despite the uproar, the work is anything but blasphemous; on the contrary, it is a statement which reduces the religious beliefs of our society on the hearsay of people two thousand years ago, and argues that freedom of thought is rare and precious. Above all, LIFE OF BRIAN is very much Pro-Christ, but anti-Church, standing as a beacon for the right to criticise religion. Whether it’s Brian’s unwanted disciples arguing over whether to follow the shoe or the gourd he’s left behind as he runs away, or the anti-Roman factions who do more damage to each other than the Empire, the film stabs at the heart of comedy’s favourite target, conformity. What's endearing about the Pythons is their irreverence; LIFE OF BRIAN is so cheerfully inoffensive that it's blasphemous to take it seriously.