Holy Flying Circus: some lovely, freewheeling daftness

This reimagining of the furore surrounding Monty Python’s The Life of Brian is told in a hurley-burley Pythonesque way. Punctuated by Gilliam drawings, silly asides to camera, and men in frocks the programme is a nod to the original Flying Circus and all its eccentricities. The idea of making the programme in this way rather than a straight, dry biopic is both fresh and something it seems that the Pythons themselves would approve of.

We’re taken through the anti-Brian protests, the council bans and the death threats to the now infamous Friday Night, Saturday Morning debate with Cleese and Palin versus Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwalk.

The six Pythons are played as caricatures: here John Cleese is Basil Fawlty and Michael Palin is the Nicest Man in the World. In keeping with Monty Python tradition, most of the women are played by the men and the main cast play multiple characters, which can be confusing at times, like Phil Nichol as Terry Jones as Palin’s wife is quite a mind-boggler but it’s all in keeping with the tone of the programme. Nichol's Jones is brilliant, by the way and a tiny bit sexy...

There are some parts that don’t work or are hard to follow but that's probably the point; sometimes Monty Python didn’t work, sometimes it was a bit hard to follow but that was the fun of it.

The performances were excellent from the cast, notably Darren Boyd’s John Cleese was a revelation and Charles Edwards’ Michael Palin was, well, NICE. A host of wild characters joined a freewheeling surrealist plot. Favourite line? 'That is one big motherfucking bishop.' And Stephen Fry was God. Aces.