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Written by Jonathan Eastwood
“I’m showing you what’s possible. I’m reaching into your tiny minds and opening the doors of the TARDIS – it’s a police box – no it’s not. It’s Narnia.”
The year is 1979, Margaret Thatcher has been voted as prime minister, and there is a sense of social unrest in the air – an ideal time for the Pythons to release what is considered by most to be their magnus opus, The Life of Brian. The film tells the story of Brian, a man born at the same time as Jesus Christ (I must stress that the two ARE different characters!), and how he tries to live a ‘normal’ life to disastrous consequences. Upon its release, there was an eruption from Christians and other conservative groups who felt that the depiction of Christ and the subject matter of the film were trivialising their faith. It is at this point where we, the audience, find ourselves.
We are introduced to the Pythons who are being pressured by the eccentric Alan Dick (Jason Thorpe) to go on a televised debate against Malcolm Muggeridge (Michael Cochrane) and Mervyn Stockwood (Roy Marsden) to defend the film and their rights to criticise organised religion. It is during the run-up to the debate where we are thrown into the unique surrealist comedy which has the same feel as the original series, but in a modern setting – this is perhaps best shown by the ‘remix’ of the Python theme, Liberty Bell, at the beginning.
The secondary cast, which include recognisable faces in British comedy such as Stephen Fry and Mark Heap, are good in their roles. However, it is the portrayals of the Pythons which deserve praise; each of the actors are easily recognisable as their characters by their appearances (specifically Steve Punt as Eric Idle), their voices, and mannerisms. It should be noted since this was a comedy and not a serious biopic, the characters of the Pythons are a tad exaggerated from what I guess they are actually like; we are of course reminded, thanks to the John Cleese political broadcast, that Darren Boyd is playing a Basil Fawlty-esque character rather than the real Cleese – who is described as “a very nice man”.
Holy Flying Circus introduces eccentric characters, echoing former personalities such as Biggus Dickus, Mrs. Preposition, or Mr. Creosote, and satires the British identity and its institutions, specifically BBC 4 and its Head of Programming: “I want a three-part series about canals; a documentary about Scandinavian jazz; and some footage of a barge – and that’s all we’ll be showing for the next six months”.
While the events of Holy Flying Circus are largely fictionalised and full of Pythonesque surrealism, making it a good comedy film, it will make people think about freedom to expression against censorship; a noteworthy scene of this is the socio-political debate between Cleese and a newspaper salesman about the ‘future’ (breaking the fourth wall by confronting contemporary issues) of reprisals from extremists over the portrayal of Mohammed across various media.
At this point I should admit that I was anxious about watching a film about the Pythons, but once I started I couldn’t stop laughing, nor did I want to. Holy Flying Circus, in my humble opinion, was an affectionate and fitting tribute to a small group of six men who changed British comedy forever. I would strongly suggest watching this to anyone, My only problem with it was that an hour and a half was not long enough – it was so good that I actually watched it again – and I am confident that there will be lots of people who agree.
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