Holy Flying Circus review (DVD) ★★

A comic drama made for BBC 4, Holy Flying Circus shows the storm of protest that engulfed the Monty Python troupe upon the release of their film Life of Brian in 1979. The film is now widely regarded as one the the funniest ever made, regularly topping the list shows that used to be constantly on Channel 4. However, in 1979 it created the sort of controversy rarely seen today. Only Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ comes close and that was released in 1988. The film was considered so titanically outrageous, that censorship issues dogged it well into the 21st century. The film was banned in Torbay until 2008 and Aberystwyth until 2009, despite it having been broadcast on British network television regularly. The controversy didn’t stop at Britain, a fact acknowledged in the film’s advertising on release: “So funny it was banned in Norway.”

Life of Brian is not actually a blasphemous film. The Pythons were acutely sensitive to this issue during the production, taking great care to make it absolutely clear in the film’s opening minutes that it was not a comic depiction of Jesus Christ. Brian is an average Joe mistakenly proclaimed a messiah against his will who becomes a pawn of rival political and religious factions. But that made no difference, especially when Mary Whitehouse’s loony Festival of Light got involved.

As ever with the most controversial of films, it was seized on by the media for sensational headlines, politicians debated it for their own ends, and the most righteous condemnation came from those who for the most part had never bothered to watch it. Stung by the adverse reaction, the Python’s agreed to take part in a debate on the BBC programme Friday Night, Saturday Morning. The broadcast programme was nothing short of a disgrace. Pythons John Cleese and Michael Palin (the rest of the team wisely deciding they wanted nothing to do with this) were to debate critics Malcolm Muggeridge (a then famous satirist and journalist who had converted to Catholicism) and Mervyn Stockwood (then Bishop of Southwark). Rather than a frank discussion, the Pythons were ambushed by two priggish, self-satisfied twerps who ignored everything they tried to say while host Tim Rice (yes the very one) took a back seat. Clips of the debacle are easily available online. It really is painful to watch, Cleese clenched with anger, Palin sinking into his seat with the expression of a man watching his own funeral.

Terrific material for a documentary or drama looking to explore British attitudes to censorship, religion, comedy and public debate. Sadly, Holy Flying Circus is very much not that. It pains me to say this, as the film has ambition, but it just does not work. Rather than attempt a sober examination of these issues, it approaches it as a pantomime and is made in the style of Monty Python. But neither is it particularly funny, coming on like one of those tedious bores at a student party reciting Python routines to a disinterested room. The film is preceded by a Python-esque text scroll setting the scene, there are animated interludes in the style of Terry Gilliam, and both Jesus and God make an appearance. God is played by Stephen Fry, a piece of casting that comes off as insufferably smug, and I say that as a great fan of Fry.

There are good moments. There is a great sequence where Cleese is harangued in the street by a newspaper seller for not having the guts to mock muslims. Cleese furiously replies that they didn’t mock Islam because it is 1979 and most British people had never heard of it. He then reels off some present-day statics to rebuff the common bigoted assertion that the UK has been “invaded” by Islamists by showing that, in fact, believers in Islam make up less than 4% of the UK population.

Quite why the decision was taken for Darren Boyd not to portray Cleese as a real person, but play Basil Fawlty instead, I have no idea. It is so confusing that a comic “party political broadcast on behalf of John Cleese” is inserted to make clear that this is not a realistic version of Cleese. Cleese and Palin are the central figures, while the rest of the Pythons fade into the background. Even Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam who actually directed Brian. This is a shame, because Rufus Jones is terrific as Terry Jones. Tom Fisher is a good Graham Chapman, but his role appears mainly to remind us of Chapman’s sexuality and to smoke a pipe. Steve Punt as Eric Idle, and Phil Nichol as Gilliam have very little to do. And the actors do double up on parts – for instance, Rufus Jones also plays Palin’s wife as Terry Jones in drag.

The best performance in the film comes from Charles Edwards as Palin, the Dave Grohl of British comedy (everyone likes him). Palin is the Python most obviously dismayed by the furore around the film, but who thinks that common sense and Oxbridge debating skills will save the day. Cleese is equally annoyed at the reception of Brian, but too cynical about the public to have much faith in their ability to turn things around (or is he, maybe it’s Basil Fawlty who is cynical?).

The meta nature of the film is such that the story seems surreal and fictionalised. It is comic exaggeration taken so far that any sense of reality is lost. There is little social context or historical framework, so instead it the story drifts and the viewer’s attention drifts with it. This is especially damaging when it is revealed that Muggeridge and Stockwood turned up 15 minutes late for their screening of Life of Brian and missed the section of the film establishing that Brian was not Jesus. This is absolutely true, but when revealed in Holy Flying Circus it feels like exaggeration.

Interestingly, the BBFC come off very well in the film. This is as it should be, given the BBFC actually watched Life of Brian and had no issue with it at all, passing it with a AA rating (roughly equivalent to today’s 15).

This is the sort of approach to creating drama out of real characters and events that Michael Winterbottom did so well in 24 Hour Party People, but Winterbottom knew that the key to success was creating a realistic and recognisable social and historical backdrop. He also knew when to take his foot of the satirical gas pedal and let the characters breath. Holy Flying Circus doesn’t do either of these things and quickly becomes rather tiresome.