50 Fun Facts About Life of Brian

Which tradesmen do distant listeners at Life of Brian's Sermon on the Mount think Jesus has blessed?

The cheesemakers got the blessing because 'peacemakers' was misheard from the back of the crowd, which then debated whether it meant all makers of dairy products.

What catches Brian in mid-air when he falls from a tower while fleeing Roman guards in Life of Brian?

A passing alien spaceship was Terry Gilliam's fix for a hero stranded atop a tower: 'OK, spaceship for that', he recalled, noting that Star Wars had just come out.

Life of Brian's final song topped a 2014 British survey of music people want played at which occasion?

Funerals: a 2005 Music Choice survey already had it as the third most requested song for Britons' own send-offs, and by 2014 it was the most popular of all.

Which destroyer's crew sang Life of Brian's final song while awaiting rescue after a 1982 Exocet strike?

HMS Sheffield's sailors sang it as their ship burned in the Falklands War on 4 May 1982, and the crew of HMS Coventry later did the same.

Who plays Brian's mother Mandy in Life of Brian, bawler of the line polls have voted the funniest in film history?

Terry Jones played Mandy in drag, and the line she bawls at the crowd outside her house has repeatedly topped polls as the funniest in film history; he also doubles as Simon the Holy Man.

Which 1960 epic's climax does Life of Brian parody when every crucified man claims to be Brian?

Spartacus's famous moment of mass loyalty is inverted: the rescuers free the wrong man, and 'I'm Brian, and so's my wife' has itself featured in polls of the film's best lines.

What does 'Romani ite domum', the graffiti a Roman officer corrects and makes Brian write out 100 times, mean?

Romans go home: Brian's first attempt was so garbled that the officer cared more about his grammar than his sedition, and the corrected slogan covered the palace wall by dawn.

In Life of Brian, a beggar grumbles that Jesus cured him of what, costing him his living?

Leprosy had been the ex-leper's trade: while pestering Brian for alms he calls Jesus a 'bloody do-gooder' for healing him and ending his begging income.

Brian's followers split into sects over which lost item, a schism the director likened to the Church's whole history?

A sandal dropped in the chase became a holy relic, with followers arguing over its correct interpretation; the director called the quarrel 'the history of the Church in three minutes'.

Life of Brian returned to US cinemas in April 2004 to 'cash in' on the success of which film?

The Passion of the Christ's huge grosses prompted the re-release, which ran until October on up to 28 screens and took $646,124.

Which Python wrote Life of Brian's final song using only jazz chords, and sings it from the neighbouring cross?

Eric Idle wrote it on a Gibson J-50 using only jazz chords he had learned from a Mickey Baker course, while the Pythons were still hunting for a way to end the film.

Who picketed Life of Brian's 1979 New York screenings, one group prompting a Python to remark on their banners?

Rabbis and nuns picketed together ('Nuns with banners!' one Python observed); New York met the film first, because it opened in America months before Britain.

In Life of Brian, what name does PFJ member Stan adopt after asserting his right as a man to have babies?

Loretta is the name the group uses from then on, agreeing that the right to give birth is not theirs to take away; 'sibling' then replaces brother or sister in their debates.

Life of Brian's director insisted the film was not blasphemy but what, since it mocked dogma rather than belief?

Heresy was the director's word: the film never touches belief in God, only the way followers fight over how the teaching is interpreted, which he said had been the pattern for two thousand years.

What does Mandy reveal about Brian's birth that drives him into the People's Front of Judea?

His father was a centurion, making Brian half-Roman, a twist scholars read as a nod to the old polemic that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier called Panthera.

Which prime minister cited Life of Brian's feuding Judean fronts when an MP asked what Labour had ever done for us?

Tony Blair reached for the joke at Prime Minister's Questions on 3 May 2006, answering a Labour MP's question about what the government had ever done for us, itself a parody of Reg's PFJ speech.

Which joke title did one Python give reporters for the third Python film, before any Life of Brian script existed?

Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory was the flippant answer, a play on the UK title of the 1970 film Patton, tossed out after Holy Grail's success when no third film had even been discussed.

Which film alone ranked above Life of Brian in Empire magazine's 2016 list of the 100 best British films?

Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean's desert epic, alone outranked a comedy that several British town councils had banned on its release in 1979.

At which 2012 event did the writer of Life of Brian's final song perform it live to a global television audience?

The London Olympics closing ceremony gave the song a slot in its 'Symphony of British Music', 33 years after its first single failed to chart; the singer added a verse about being stuck on the world's stage.

Which heavy metal band is known for playing Life of Brian's final song as its concerts end?

Iron Maiden send crowds home with it, one of many adoptions that range from football terraces to Harry Nilsson's 1980 cover on his album Flash Harry.

Which Welsh town lifted a supposed 30-year Life of Brian ban in 2009, its mayor having played Judith in the film?

Aberystwyth's mayor, the actress who played Judith, campaigned to end the ban, only to learn there never was one: councillors watched the film in 1981, found parts 'quite unacceptable' and still allowed it.

Which British morality campaigner's pamphlets and pickets against Life of Brian were felt to have boosted its publicity?

Mary Whitehouse and other traditionalist Christians picketed cinemas showing the film, while leaflets argued the Wise Men would never have approached the wrong stable.

Who plays Life of Brian's Pontius Pilate, the governor whose speech impediment the Passover crowd mocks with 'r' names?

Michael Palin's Pilate finally agrees to 'welease Bwian', and Palin also plays Mr Big-Nose, the Boring Prophet and the guard Nisus Wettus, a name never spoken in the film.

Which Radio 1 breakfast DJ revived Life of Brian's final song, driving a 1991 reissue to UK No. 3?

Simon Mayo's breakfast show had a habit of reviving old novelty songs; Virgin reissued the track on 23 September 1991 and it peaked at No. 3, twelve years after the film.

Which subject, among several John Cleese taught at his prep school, did he draw on for a Life of Brian scene?

Latin, which Cleese taught for two years while waiting for a Cambridge place, fuels the scene where his officer marks Brian's wall slogan like homework and sets it as a hundred lines.

Which rival faction fights Brian's PFJ in Pilate's palace over who planned the kidnap first?

The Campaign for a Free Galilee had the same kidnap plan, and the two factions fight each other until Brian is the only survivor, pausing only to agree that the common enemy is the Judean People's Front.

Which Hitler-moustached extremist leader was almost entirely cut from Life of Brian, surviving only at the crucifixion?

Otto arrives with his 'crack suicide squad', which scatters the Roman soldiers then stabs itself to death; the scene stayed only because the bodies were visible throughout the rest of the sequence.

Before attacking Life of Brian on BBC2, what did Malcolm Muggeridge and Bishop Mervyn Stockwood reportedly do?

They arrived 15 minutes late to the preview, it was later claimed, missing the opening that shows Brian and Jesus are different people, and so argued the film sent up Jesus himself.

Which Goon Show star landed in a Life of Brian crowd scene while visiting his old wartime battlefields in Tunisia?

Spike Milligan was added to the scene shot that morning as a prophet ignored by the crowd, then left in the afternoon before any close-ups or publicity shots.

Which 2007 comic oratorio, premiered at Toronto's Luminato festival, retold Life of Brian?

Not the Messiah, a Handel spoof written with John Du Prez after Spamalot's success, was conducted at its premiere by Peter Oundjian, the writer's cousin, and later played the Royal Albert Hall.

Which comedy came fifth in Channel 4's 2001 poll of the 100 greatest films, eighteen places above Life of Brian?

Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder's 1959 cross-dressing caper, won that round; in 2006 the same channel's comedy-only poll reversed it, with Life of Brian first and the Wilder film outside the top ten.

Formed to bankroll Life of Brian, HandMade Films first produced which 1981 fantasy, co-written by two Pythons?

Time Bandits, the first film HandMade produced rather than merely distributed, closes with a new George Harrison song, 'Dream Away', whose lyrics comment on the film and on its director's behaviour.

Sweden marketed Life of Brian as 'so funny that it was banned in' which neighbouring country?

Norway banned the film for a year, and Sweden's marketers pounced; Finland instead added text to the opening credits explaining that it parodied Hollywood epics.

Which city's bid delegation famously sang Life of Brian's final song right after the 2000 Games were awarded to Sydney?

Manchester's dignitaries took the loss in song, one of the renditions that turned the number into a life-affirming anthem for football crowds and, from 2014, an unofficial England anthem release.

In which 1997 film does Jack Nicholson's misanthrope briefly sing Life of Brian's final song as proof he has changed?

As Good as It Gets also put Art Garfunkel's recording of the song on its soundtrack, with the rude line softened to 'Life's a counterfeit'.

Which 2011 BBC Four comedy dramatised the 1979 TV debate between two Pythons and Life of Brian's churchmen critics?

Holy Flying Circus, written by Tony Roche, restaged the Friday Night, Saturday Morning clash with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark in a deliberately 'Pythonesque' style.

On which Caribbean island did the Pythons finish Life of Brian's script in a two-week 'writing and water-skiing' stint?

Barbados produced the final draft in January 1978; when EMI's chief finally read the script he pulled the funding, days before the crew was due to leave.

Which spoof travelogue, narrated by a Python, was screened before Life of Brian in British and Australian cinemas?

Away from It All paired stock footage with arch commentary, mocking the cheap shorts British cinemas then ran before features; one shot of Bulgarian girls in ceremonial dress was captioned as a Warsaw Pact threat.

Life of Brian beat which blockbuster's house record at London's Plaza Theatre in its 1979 opening week?

Jaws had held the Plaza's record until the Pythons beat it by almost £9,000; the film stayed number one in London for six weeks and took more in its sixth week than its first.

Life of Brian's bickering Judean fronts also spoofed the similarly named factions of which real liberation movement?

Palestinian groups supplied the template: the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front had split from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which had itself kept dividing.

Under what name was Life of Brian reissued in 2007, becoming the first Python title to reach Blu-ray?

The Immaculate Edition carried a lengthened cut of The Secret Life of Brian, Channel 4's documentary on the making and the uproar, which had anchored a whole evening of Python on New Year's Day 2007.

Which sketch show answered the Life of Brian TV debate with a bishop grilled by the 'Church of Python'?

Not the Nine O'Clock News, a week after the debate, had Rowan Atkinson's bishop defend his scandalous film The Life of Christ, protesting that he 'didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition'.

Which Tunisian town, home to Luke Skywalker's cave dwelling in Star Wars, hosted Life of Brian's Sermon on the Mount?

Matmata staged the Sermon and the crucifixion; the main shoot was at Monastir, where the Pythons could reuse sets left from Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth.

Five deleted Life of Brian scenes, 13 minutes in all, first surfaced in 1997 on which company's Laserdisc?

The Criterion Collection disc rescued them a year before the company that bought HandMade destroyed an unknown amount of raw footage; in one, three shepherds talk sheep and miss the angel announcing Jesus's birth.

Which actor, later Admiral Piett in The Empire Strikes Back, plays Jesus straight in Life of Brian's opening scenes?

Kenneth Colley's Jesus is lit and scored with a genuine aura and treated with respect; the comedy only starts when the crowd at the back mishears the Beatitudes.

Who performed the whistling on Life of Brian's final song, having also appeared on screen as a weedy Samaritan?

Neil Innes whistled, while John Altman arranged and conducted a full orchestra with the Fred Tomlinson Singers at Chappell's Studio; the soundtrack album listed the track under a longer title.

Which Yorkshire spa town's council admitted on television it had banned Life of Brian without seeing it?

Harrogate's councillors had relied on the Nationwide Festival of Light, an evangelical pressure group they admitted knowing nothing about; other councils that banned the film had no cinema at all.

Which New York Times critic called Life of Brian 'the foulest-spoken biblical epic ever made'?

Vincent Canby also called it 'the best-humored' biblical epic, 'a nonstop orgy of assaults... on the funny bone', while Roger Ebert gave it three stars out of four.

What is the single word George Harrison says in his Life of Brian cameo, a line later dubbed by another Python?

'Ullo, a cheery but out-of-place Scouse greeting, came from Mr Papadopoulos, 'owner of the Mount', who shakes Brian's hand in a crowd scene; the word had to be dubbed in afterwards.

Which composer, also behind the Brideshead Revisited and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy themes, scored Life of Brian?

Geoffrey Burgon got the job because he was the best school friend of the director's elder brother, and the director knew no other composers; both television scores won him Ivor Novello Awards.