"Hello and welcome to London's Leicester Square." "We're here for a very special scweening of Monty Python's Life of Bwian." "We're also about to embark on a thankfully short journey to discover what we can about the quasi mythical group of comedians responsible for the movie." "And if that weren't enough we've also discovered sevewal vewy ware outtakes which have never before been seen." "Hail leader!" "Stolen from a black bin bag found outside the editing room these clips illustrate the true genius of the pythons." "Many consider the stuff left outside the movies to be far funnier than that which the public paid to see." " Miauw!" "Miauw!" " Shh!" "Shh!" "Coming up a bit later on, but first, who and why are Monty Python?" "The six young men that were to become Monty Python met in an internment camp in 1941." "They quickly formed a close, almost fraternal bond." "We caught up with one founder member, Eric Idle, at his new job, as a professional book signer." "I used to sign Michael Palin's books for a living, but finally I found that people didn't want to read them, so I just, you know..." "I have a very rare unsigned copy of a Michael Palin book which I'm selling at Sotheby's next week." "We eventually found Michael Palin working as a window cleaner in London." "Since the split, he has fallen on hard times." "I do parties, bar mitzwas, whatever you like, you know I'll come along and wash for you, yeah, yeah." "Do anything for money, you know." "You have to now." "Tallest of the Pythons, John Cleese was recently voted mayor of Leicester." "Despite a number of embezzlement charges he retains fond memories of his old compadres." "Eric Idle, not quite as much of a bastard as Michael, but running in close." "Running in..." "A bitch, would be a better word, yeah." "Well that Gilliam's alright, Gilliam's alright." "He's American." "Animator Terry Gilliam became a fully fledged member of the group after an undisclosed cash payment." "I remember that he, you know, he was incredibly tall, very blond, very athletic, smoked a pipe." "and died ten years ago, that was the sad thing, so it's a fond memory we have of Mike." "In some ways the most fortunate of the pythons, the brilliant and handsome Graham Chapman sadly died in 1989." "Subsequent rumours of his wesuwwection have been strongly denied by the group." "Graham, we threw him out." "And he then had to fake his own death." "I'm delighted he's dead." "Terry Jones now lives deep undergwound in a disused Napoleonic arsenal, dweaming up new pwojects for the pythons." "Actually we were talking about doing a film called Monty Python's last crusade." "Terry Jones tried tremendously hard, really does his best all the time." "Yes, sad, you know." "But you know, one day it will work for him, one day." "It turned out the group shares a dark secret." "We knew once upon a time we had this extraordinary chemistry going between us." "And now we found out what it was all about, we were sextuplets, we were all born in the same sex shop." "It was this genetic familiarity, this prenateral symbiosis that created one of television's most memorable forty five episodes." " And now..." " It's..." "We came in with a very conscious attitude of not being politically satirical, there was a bit of social satire in there and we occasionally mentioned politicians if they had silly names, like Reginald Maudling." "We were very consciously nonpolitical." "Know what I mean, know what I mean." "Nudge Nudge, nudge nudge." " Venezuelan beaver cheese?" " Not today, sir, no." "Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!" "This is a late parrot!" "I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wildflowers," "I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars." "I, I feel that we changed the twentieth century, basically." "I think for example the atom bomb, certainly the Russian success at Stalingrad, the information revolution, and probably the 1953 cup final would not have been possible without Monty Python." "You know, one of the odd things about python is that it was never as good as the last thing we did you know, like the TV series, the second series, people said, oh well it's quite funny, but not as good as the first," "and the third series, well, that's quite funny, but not as good as the second, and then, Holy Grail, well, it's all right, but not as good as the TV series." "For their first feature film, the Pythons drew upon their personal experiences of medieval Britain." "Together they formed a band whose names and deeds were to be retold throughout the centuries:" "The knights of the round table." " Camelot!" " Camelot!" " Camelot!" " It's only a model." "I think when we made Holy Grail, which is the first one we made all on our own, we spent about a year editing." "Do you think this scene should have been cut?" "We were so worried when the boys were writing it." "But now we're glad!" "It's better than some of the previous scenes, I think." " Get on with it." " Yes, get on with it." "Yes, get on with it!" "The first time we showed it to an audience, we had about two hundred people I mean, we showed it and everybody laughed for about the first four minutes, and then, silence all the way through." "Now stand aside, worthy adversary." " 'Tis but a scratch." " A scratch?" "You arm's off!" " No it isn't." " Well what's that then?" " I've had worse." " You liar!" "Come on, you pansy!" "Like when you see it, first thought, you're terribly worried, is it going to be funny?" " Yeah, yeah." "And after a while, oh it's alright." "Once you heared somebody else tell you the jokes and you feel okay, it's okay to laugh." "Run away!" "Run away, run away!" "Run away, run away, run away!" "Run away, run away!" "Intoxicated by the loudness and length of the Holy Grail, the Pythons decided to tackle a bigger fish." "Eric had this lovely silly title about Jesus Christ Lust for Glory, we all laughted at that, and then we had the idea that Brian was the thirteenth disciple, he wasn't quite an official disciple but he was a kind of palable or the other..." "And he, he got invited to all the events like the last supper but he couldn't go to the last supper 'cause his wife had asked friends around and he was going to come on later for a drink," "and we thought this was all very funny and like a lot of Pythons stuff that we cook up together we threw it all out and nobody ever bothered to write it, because what's the fun of writing so that's already been agreed?" "So we then started writing funny background stuff, like I remember writing the stoning stuff, which wasn't supposed to be part of the story, it was just sort of funny background." "Now look!" "No-one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle, do you understand?" "I remember that the whole thing for me started to fall into shape, you'll get a different story from all of the pythons, when Michael Palin read out something he'd written about Pontius Pilate." "And we said, you know, with this ridiculous accent, or voice, or whatever you call it, speech impediment." "And suddenly that gave us, sort of opened a door, to a kind of a story, and the whole thing started to fall into place in a way that in retrospect was almost magical." "Now, what is your name, jew?" " Brian, sir." " Bwian, hey?" "No no, Brian." "The little wascal has spiwit." " Has what, sir?" " Spiwit." "Yes, he did, sir." "No no, spiwit, bwavado, a touch of dewwing-do." "Oh, eh, about eleven, sir." "The life of Brian, no, rings no bells with me I'm afraid." "Wait a minute!" "We're supposed to haggle!" "Sounds a rather boring film, has it anything to do with jedi knights?" " Alright, I'll give you ten." " That's more like it." "Ten!" "Are you trying to insult me, me with a poor dying grandmother?" "Ten?" "Are there dogs in it?" "Or anything like that, anything interesting?" " He's offering me fourteen for this." " Fifteen!" "Seventeen, my last word, I won't take a penny less, or strike me dead." " Sixteen!" " Done." "Yes, it's a long time ago, I can't really remember that far back, but it sounds hilarious." "Crucifixion party." "Morning." "Now, we will be on show as we go through the town, so let's not let the side down." "Keep in a good straight line, three lengths between you and the man in front, and a good steady pace." "Crosses over your left shoulders, and if you keep your backs hard up against the cross beam, you'll be there in no time." "Graham was great casting for Brian, he was very very good." "Very good as Brian." "'Cause he'd cleaned up his act, he'd stopped drinking about eight months before and he was in great physical shape which pissed us all off, because he was in better shape than we all were, and we hadn't been alcoholic." "Look, there he is, the chosen one has awoken." "What's interesting about Life of Brian is that it's not about belief, it's about organised religion, it's about what happens when any system of belief gets organised and then the rot starts to set in," "everybody starts disagreeing, and if they disagree strongly enough, they'll start killing each other and torturing each other." " Lay off!" " This is the messiah, the chosen one!" " No he's not!" " An unbeliever!" " An unbeliever!" " Persecute!" "Kill the heretic!" "One of the things that everyone remembers I think from the movie is the farcicals at the time, especially in America." "Here you are dealing with a subject which many consider perhaps not the correct subject for comedy." "In fact the first group to object to the film were, was the New York rabinical society," "New York jews complaining about it." "The lutherans, and an anglican church, and we were also condemned by the catholics, and we were condemned by two out of the three main jewish denominations, and I remember Eric said that we had performed the very useful task" "of bringing these very godly people together for the first time in history." "Almost immediately upon release, Life of Brian was denounced by most western religions, and nine out of ten dental hygienists." "I can laugh at jokes about the church, about the institution," "I think the problem for me is, when you actually start getting effectively at christ himself." " Well, who cured you?" " Jesus did, sir." "I was hopping along minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me!" "One minute I'm a leper without faith, next minute my livelihood's gone!" "Not so much as a by your leave." "You're cured, mate." "Bloody do-gooder." "The idea, somebody said to me that the python team said it was heresy, not blasphemy, I don't buy." "Alright, I am the messiah!" "He is!" "He is the messiah!" "Now, fuck off!" "No I would ban it." "I would ban it, because obviously I get royalties." "And the more people that ban it, the more stuff there'll be about it in the press, the more people go to see it." "So I would ban it." "Coming up in part two, the now infamous lost Brian outtakes." "Welcome back." "And now the never ever seen by anyone ever, including the pythons, lost outtakes." " I love sheep." " So do I. Terrific animals." "Terrific." " No trouble." " No, no trouble." "Except at shearing." "They can play up a bit then, can't they?" "Oh yeah." "But I love that sort of little burst of frenzy they have then, you know?" "I like it when they get a little bit angry." "Shows they're human." "Oh, yeah, I'm not saying I dislike them at shearing, you know." "But they can be a bit of a handful, can't they?" "So would you be." "You find a great pair of scissors snipping away while someone holds your back legs apart." "You'd wiggle a bit, you kick out a bit of a fuss." "Yeah, I'm not just saying I expect them to stand around in the fields and nibble the grass and look a bit pretty." "I'm not saying that." " Oh, but they are pretty, aren't they?" " Oh, yeah." "I mean, look at that one over there against the sky." "The white of the coat, the little black face against the twinkling stars beyond." " Yeah." " Terrific." "Terrific animals." " Little lambs in springtime." " Oh, lambs." "Now you're talking." "I suppose you've seen the angel descending you see, in that light, you see, casting the eh-." "And he's actually visiting the other shepherds." "It's a lovely idea so we're focussing on the wrong group but why did you not leave it in the film?" "Didn't get a lot of reaction." "This scene too gets the film off to too slow a start." "Do you think the sheep were upset to be left cutting their own fur?" "I think so, I think we should have shown it to sheep, that was the problem." "If we'd got humans in the audience we might have been alright." "Shh." "I heard something over there." " Wolves?" " Could be." " Where?" " Over there." "Right." "Take that, you buggers." "That's not a wolf." "What did you do that for?" " I thought he was a wolf." " You hit him right in the face." "Well, he shouldn't come snooping around like that." "You wait till you hear what we've just seen." "The most incredible thing's just happened." "Don't tell them." "We were on the hillside over there when this amazing..." "Don't tell them, they broke my bloody nose." " Can't I tell them about the amazing..." " No." " They said we were to tell everybody." " Not people who break your bloody nose." " Come on." " Where are you going?" " Bethlehem." " Nowhere, good night." "That's right, leave your sheep." "Leave them to the wolves." "Call yourselves shepherds?" "You're a disgrace to the profession." "What a rotten thing to do." "You go and leave those little helpless furry bundles alone on the hillside." "So they can go down Bethlehem and get drunk." " Is it A.D. yet?" " Quarter past." "It was a great shame when that didn't get in the film because you know it had a nice lovely feel to it and there we were, out in Tunisia one starry night doing that, and I thought, at that time I thought, you know," "things are going to go alright, we'll be succesfull, but here you are, you know." "I remember there was a long and boring shepherd scene which we fought very hard to cut." "'Cause you managed to find that and put that back in have you?" "Jolly jolly good." "The idea with Pilate's wife was that they thought they were going to sort of capture this soft target and hold her to ransom and that Pilate would then have to do everything they dictated." "And then we thought it was funny if she was absolutely huge and very powerful and more than any of them could handle." "I got her!" "She got me!" "Help, she got me!" "Stop, please!" " Shit." " You stupid..." "From the meeting with the group you go straight into the fight." "And it seemed almost with the catching of Pilate's wife it was almost a diversion and you went off and you had a bit of a fight then you go off on that diversion then you come back and have more fight" "and it just seemed to go on too long." "Sort of an unnecessary cul de sac to go down." " Yeah." " But a funny one." "And it's always great to see enormous breasts on screen." "One of my favourite groups in the movie are the suicide squad." " Oh yeah, yes." " Headed by Otto, and that's the scene I was most keen to see which we're going to look at now." " Hail leader!" " What?" "Oh, I'm so sorry, have you seen the new leader?" " The what?" " The new leader." "I wish to find him and hail him." "Hail leader!" "See?" " Who are you?" " My name is Otto." "Oh, Otto." "Well I'm not sure..." "Oh!" "I grow so impatient you know to see the leader that has been promised our people for centuries!" "The leader who will save Israel by ridding it of the scum of non-jewish people." "Making it pure!" "No foreigners, no rifraf, no gypsies!" " Shh, Otto!" " What, the leader?" "Hail leader!" " No no it's dangerous!" " Danger?" "There is no danger!" "Men!" " Impressive, hey?" " Yes." "Oh yes." "We are a thoroughly trained suicide squad." " Oh." " Oh yes, we can commit suicide ...within twenty seconds." " Twenty seconds?" " You don't believe me?" " Yes." " I think you question me." " No no no." "It was a very difficult decision because it was a funny scene and it actually made the end sequence funnier because when we hang on the cross when you see Otto's men arriving and then committing suicide in front of the squad," "in front of the cross, it's funnier when you've seen the scene." " Yeah." " So, to cut it was really." "like drawing teeth actually, because it did, it lessened the ending." " See?" " Yes." " I think now you believe me, yes?" " Yes, very impressive." "I think now I prove it to you, huh?" " Yes." " All dead." "I mean you must think about it because it was Eric's main piece that he'd written and it was a very genuinely funny bit but it's like, you know in the end you have to... you make sacrifices, for the better of the group." "After Brian's arrest, his girlfriend rushes to send the sign that is the sign to Otto." "Look at them going." "Those meant to be pidgeons flying off." "This is John, wonderful scene, wonderful performance from John here." "This was all shot in Tattooine, which is where, which is the name of the planet in Star Wars." " Did they shoot in the same area?" " ..the sign that is the sign..." "They shot in the same area and they took the name from the town." "Men, our time has come!" "Our leader calls!" "Men, forward!" "Oh my cock!" "Otto and his suicide squad now only appear in the crucifixion scene." "There's a shot of me looking at something so I've revoiced it and say," "Oh, it's Otto the suicide squad, or something, just because they knew they were, you know." "The judean people's front!" "The judean people's front!" "Forwards all!" "I think we then did a top shot of them in upshot sandpits in Surrey just to fill in on them." "We are the judean people's front, crack suicide squad." "Suicide squad, attack!" "That showed them, huh." "Is it much harder the fact that you're dealing with a bunch of other very strong-minded individuals with great comic sense themselves for you then to make..." "Presumably you made the final decisions what stayed in." "Well with Life of Brian we were still trying to keep everybody making decisions, trying to keep everybody going in." "And apart..." "I mean like with cutting Otto," "I mean I suppose I decided to do it, but then I would have said to everybody," "I would have rung Eric up and said," "I'm terribly sorry but I think we've got to cut it, and he would have said, oh you bastard." "I do remember, by the time we did Meaning of Life everybody, nobody could be bothered really, you know, they wouldn't, you know, turn up for some of the sessions, and things." "I sort of walked away and did my own little film during the Meaning of Life, the Crimson Permanent Insurance," "I had my own soundstage and my own crew, so I didn't have to play with the others." "The Meaning of Life was brilliant, flawed, and ultimately too expensive for us to show." "For the pythons it marked the end of the long wide road and the beginning of several narrow, slightly twistier paths which they had to follow separately." "Yet now, thirty years later on, here in the fashionable heart of London's West End, those paths cross again." "And waiting at the crossroads, they find Brian and me." "For the first time in nearly eight weeks, the pythons, minus Eric Idle, came together for this once in a lunchtime event." "And the excitement was palpable." "But then of course, came lunch." "When we've gone on talking for a long time, you'll make some vague gesture and we will just leave the stage still talking, and leave you behind to say just what you say." "...just go on, introduce the film we'll talk over the film you could even talk about doing a movie, might be nice." "Jonathan announces the audio, are there any questions." "Before we start the film, the guys have agreed to take a couple of questions from the audience, is a way of duty, so does anyone have a question for any or all of the group?" "Did you get paid for making it?" "Let me rephrase that, he wanted to know, what's your favourite moment in the film?" "(all talk together)" "What did I think of the film, the film is very very good." "Michael Palin is the man." "I think it's the funniest film ever made." "And if I see him in here, I'm going to just leap on him like a little monkey and kiss him." "The film was wonderful, great, gorgeous, I only saw it for a very short moment just towards the beginning." "And not in a gay way, in a kind of man who loves another man kind of way." "Well I have nothing to say, yet." "So well done." "I'd just like to say, thank you to Leicester for electing me mayor and I hope to be able to discharge my responsibilities in a satisfactory way." "Thank you." "I sometimes regret not going into the church, but that was it, it was locked."