Holy Flying Circus

I was too young to know about the controversy surrounding "The Life Of Brian" when it was first released, but in my adult years I discovered that not everyone felt the same way I did about the film - their loss.

Casting of the actors playing Monty Python cast was just about perfect from a visual point of view. The only issue I had was with the actor portraying Terry Gilliam not being able to fake an American accent effectively.

There are so many shout outs to the way the Flying Circus series was made in this film to make it almost seem like the original cast had made it in the early '80's and it had gotten lost somewhere and recently found and broadcast.

The irony of Stephen Fry portraying his particular character is outstanding.

I laughed out loud a lot while watching this "mockudramedy" and I would have given it a 10 star rating if not for the aforementioned bad American accent.

This pythonesque drama about the subsequent controversy of the Monty Python film, Life Of Brian breaks out of the usual docudrama route and instead goes for the surreal, re-imagined route.

It even gets downright silly. The opening scene features Stephen Fry as God. Only the Spanish Inquisition is missing.

The cinema release of Life of Brian aroused a lot of controversy. The film depicts the threats the actors received and the subsequent showdown that had on a television debate with the Bishop of Southwark and Malcolm Muggeridge.

Of course tensions surrounding the event are heightened and parodied. The Python team are exaggerated persona's of themselves, with Palin being too nice, Idle the money grabber, Cleese being Basil Fawlty even doing the funny walk at one point, Terry Jones appears in drag as Palin's wife.

It does show the effect the controversy had on the actors especially Palin who is shown as the reasonable everyman, frightened with the protesters outside his door.

It very much captures the absurd spirit of Python and the actors playing Palin and Cleese come out of it best.

Absolutely superb piece of television, the very well judged performances are spot on and the Pythons are portrayed extremely well. The period of time is beautifully rendered and the entire madness of unwavering beliefs and the ramifications therein are dealt with magnificently and with a great deal of integrity. The way they worked many of the Monty Python staples such as very obvious drag and so on into the piece were masterfully done, all in all and with everything considered to be honest I couldn't stand it ;)

(why waffle on aimlessly and without rational thought like Malcolm Muggeridge and THE BISHOP! when you can express your view succinctly)

I have just seen this television play, which I recorded some time ago. I haven't laughed so much in ages. The subject is the events in 1979 when the Monty Python team launched "The Life of Brian", and came under attack from Christians on both sides of the Atlantic. The whole thing is done in the spirit of MP, with fantasy sequences and lots of silliness. The actors, particularly those portraying John Cleese and Michael Palin, are so realistic, that I had trouble remembering that I was not watching the originals. Steve Punt also makes a very convincing Eric Idle. The highlight of the play is the well-known confrontation on the chat show, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning between Cleese and Palin on the one side, and Malcolm Muggeridge, former Communist and then born-again Christian journalist, and Mervyn Stockwood, the closetly homosexual Church of England bishop, on the other. A straightforward representation of the facts would not have been worthwhile, but the hilarious way in which events and characters are represented is like watching MP in their prime. Utterly recommended!

Very, very funny film. The first one that's had me in fits of laughter for years. The film mixes fact with homages to the jokes in the original film and also brings in various references from other characters that the original cast have played. The characters look very much like their real life counterparts too, so when I first started watching it I thought I was seeing a documentary. The film never takes itself too seriously, as it slips in references to the present day, despite being set in the past, and the humour is something that would sit very happily at the top of the Monty Python league. Very clever film.