Wednesday, June 22, 2011

ASOTV: COMING SOON TO A TOOBWORLD NEAR YOU

This autumn, BBC4 will be presenting a dramatization of the religious controversy that surrounded the Monty Python movie "The Life Of Brian" back in 1979.


So there will be plenty of fodder for the ASOTV gallery with actors portraying the members of the Python troupe. And I wouldn't be surprised if the two right-wing religious opponents who tried to parry with John Cleese and Michael Palin on a British TV show on the subject - even though they didn't see the first fifteen minutes of the movie and went through the whole film thinking Graham Chapman's portrayal of Brian was actually supposed to be that of Jesus Christ.

Hopefully it will eventually find its way over to BBC-America or PBS. But considering the topic and the troglodyte thinking of the Far Right in this country, I may have to look for it on DVD or via (ahem!) other means.....

Here's a list of the actors to play the Monty Python gang:

John Cleese - Darren Boyd

Michael Palin - Charles Edwards

Eric Idle - Steve Punt

Graham Chapman - Tom Fisher

Terry Jones - Rufus Jones

Terry Gilliam - Phil Nichol

"'Holy Flying Circus' is not a biopic, but a fantastical re-imagining of the Pythons' struggle with censorship in the run-up to the release of Life of Brian," said a BBC spokeswoman.

The movie will probably end up in that TV dimension that holds other behind the scenes depictions of various TV productions from either side of the Atlantic....

BCnU!

2 comments:

Mike Doran said...

One of the Defenders of the Faith was Malcolm Muggeridge, the longtime leading light behind Punch, the legendary satirical magazine, and in his later years a vehement convert to Catholicism.
The other Defender was a prominent Church of England Bishop (can't recall his name).
I'm wondering who's going to play those parts ...

Toby O'B said...

The news story mentioned both men, but did not have casting information on either one. Another person of note for that segment of the story would be Tim Rice, the lyricist, who moderated that particular episode of 'Friday Night... Saturday Morning'.