John Cleese has denied that he is cutting a controversial scene from Life of Brian involving a transgender character from his forthcoming stage adaptation.
The 83-year-old is currently in the process of adapting the classic Monty Python comedy from 1979 for the stage, with plans to perform it in London next year.
In one scene in the film, a character played by Eric Idle expresses a desire to be known as Loretta and to have babies. Cleese’s character dismisses this, calling the idea “ridiculous”.
During a recent performance at his one-man live show, Cleese reportedly said that he’d included the scene during a read-through of the play in New York in 2022.
“At the end, I said to the American actors, ‘What do you think?’ and they said, ‘We love the script, but you can’t do that stuff about Loretta nowadays,’” he recalled, as reported by The Daily Mail.
“So here you have something there’s never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I’ve heard of, and now all of a sudden we can’t do it because it’ll offend people. What is one supposed to make of that?” he said.
However, Cleese – who is known for opposing “political correctness” in comedy – went on to deny that he was cutting the scene in a series of Twitter posts.
“A few days ago I spoke to an audience outside London,” he wrote. “I told them I was adapting the Life of Brian so that we could do it as a stage show (NOT a musical). I said that we’d had a table-reading of the latest draft in NYC a year ago and that all the actors – several of them Tony winners – had advised me strongly to cut the Loretta scene.
“I have, of course, no intention of doing so… Similarly, there are reports that ‘Bright Side’ is going to be cut. Untrue, for a very good reason. We don’t want to upset Eric [Idle] and it’s his only contribution to the Life of Brian script.”
When reports originally emerged about the Life of Brian stage show early this month, they had claimed that Idol and Cleese were working on the project together.
However, Idol, 80, denied any involvement, tweeting: “I have nothing at all to do with this production or adaptation. Apparently Cleese has cut the song. Of course.”
The original Life of Brian film was written by Monty Python members Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Graham Chapman.
