A Protestant man proudly lectures his wife on their church’s tolerance towards contraception and having intercourse for fun, although his frustrated wife points out that they never do.
Once banned in several American states, Ireland and Norway – and subsequently marketed in Sweden with the tagline, “The film so funny it was banned in Norway” – Life Of Brian is Monty Python at their wittiest, ballsiest best. Taking aim at the fake piety of many religious folk, its genius is perhaps best exemplified by this lapidation set-piece, which riffs on the Gospel of John, Chapter 8.
Blasphemy is by no means dead in Britain, as the recent condemnation of Gay News, for publishing a poem portraying Christ as homosexual, reveals. But The Life of Brian has nothing about it as shocking to the faithful as this, and is saved indeed from blasphemy by its sheer vulgarity.