What if you wanted to recreate a small slice of cinematic history by depicting the real-life members of a troupe of performers — for example, Monty Python's John Cleese — as the most famous of their fictional selves (in his case, Basil Fawlty)? Or wanted to depict another member of that same troupe — say, Michael Palin — as the all-round nice guy, decent chap and jolly good bloke that the public has in decades since gotten to know through his travel programmes and chat show appearances? Or wanted to depict secondary real-life characters — say Michael Palin's wife — who are largely unknown to the general public, as common comic characters from Monty Python's Flying Circus (in her case, as Terry Jones's working class housewife)? Or if you wanted to make commentary on modern-day Britain by getting the characters in 1979 to (funnily enough) spectacularly accurately speculate about what a modern-day Britain some 32 years hence might look like? And then throw in for good measure what God Himself might have to say about "Life of Brian"?Well, what you'd get is the wonderfully funny and delightful "Holy Flying Circus" — a film in the style of a Monty Python film about a particular chapter in the history of the Monty Python comedy group. Most of the actors are immediately recognisable as their Monty Python member and Darren Boyd should have won something for his portrayal/impression of John Cleese as Basil Fawlty. It was quite a phenomenal performance.After I watched it, the whole show made me wonder if in fact 1979 wasn't the very height of civilisation and that since then we've been drawn back into the mud of barbarism. I'm still thinking about that...

seemed to gather an incredible amount of bad reviews on certain sites for some reason.The simple fact is its inventive funny stupid and against all that it actually has a point to make about free speech. The actors all very closely resemble their real life counter parts and play a stereotyped parody version of the pythons themselves. Eric is a money grabbing ******* ,cleese is basil faulty ,palin is super nice etc the film takes plenty of stupid asides and skews off on tangents for the sake of comedy. it is not a documentary /drama on the events of the time as some fans where expecting.Its a strange comedy hybrid where reality frequently takes a holiday and actors directly address the viewers .As a fan of the pythons and free speech i loved this so go watch

The BBC has outdone themselves in this wonderful piece about the reception of Life of Brian. Having been taken along with 20 other pupils to see Life by my school chaplain while taking a Religious Studies A level it always has had a special place in my heart. This wonderful reconstruction captures something of the Pythons complete silliness, and the even more complete silliness of those who found Brian offensive. This is seriously the best tribute film to the Pythons out there, the effort in casting to get it right has paid off, to say they look and act like how and who they're meant to is a gross understatement - they really do capture something of each of the Flying Circus with marvelous alacrity.All in all, this is rude, crude, very, very silly in places, and, above all, fall on the floor funny. Quite simply, one of the funnier films I've seen recently and for those who like Python in any form this is smart and just what the doctor ordered.

I really enjoyed this film, more than I thought I would. I expected something worthy and literal, instead I got an episode of latter day Monty Python, one which I found funnier than many of the originals. I think my one disappointment was the opening scene where Jesus is seen behaving in an unexpected way with "Eric Idle". This will without doubt have caused many adventurous Christians, who might have decided to give it a go, to turn off, which is a shame as I think they would have benefited from and even enjoyed the remainder of the film. Any opportunity to make those of faith actually think about what they have faith in should not be missed. A little patchy in places, and a little flat at the end, but overall I really enjoyed it. Especially the performances of Michael Palin and John "Basil Fawlty" Cleese.