Comedy legend John Cleese says he refuses to remove the famous “Loretta” transgender scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian for the stage adaptation of the classic film.
On social media last Thursday, Cleese said that a journalist recently spread rumors that he would be removing the famous scene from all future adaptations of the film.
“A few days ago I spoke to an audience outside London. 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,” he tweeted.
‘So someone in the audience had called a journalist and misreported me. Amazingly none of the British media called to check,” he added.
Cleese also clarified that he would not be cutting the song “Always Look on The Bright Side of Life” from the stage adaptation.
The British comedian had been referring to a recent article in the Daily Mail that quoted him being somewhat aghast at the fact that American actors wanted him to censor the “Loretta” scene in Life of Brian.
“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 reportedly said.
He added, “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?”
Life of Brian took on a whole new meaning to a new generation in recent years when the famous “Loretta” scene went viral due to how well it portrayed the irrationality of political transgenderism – a joke that would definitely not be allowed in any mainstream Hollywood film in 2023.
A recent example of this misreporting !
A few days ago I spoke to an audience outside London.
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…(tbc) https://t.co/VPWJGdUZtJ— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) May 25, 2023
..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
So someone in the audience had called a journalist and misreported me. Amazingly none of the British media called to check
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) May 25, 2023
As Breitbart News reported earlier this year, Cleese joined the chorus of liberal voices opposing men competing with women in sports, adding that men have an unfair advantage. His comments at the time were in response to a tweet from journalist Martin Daubney lamenting how a male cyclist beat out his female competitors.
“Bloke who pretends to be a woman thrashes nearest actual female cyclist by ONE HOUR – yet would have been 19th in the men’s race, where he belongs It’s time to end the cruel, unfair charade of biological men in women’s sports! #SaveWomensSports,” tweeted Daubney.
“Biological men in women’s sports have an unfair advantage,” responded Cleese.
John Cleese has been an ardent critic of wokeism, primarily for its chilling effect on free speech and its stifling of comedians. In an interview with Fox News during the FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas, Cleese said that wokeness has had a crippling effect on comedy.
“There’s always been limitations on what they’re allowed to say,” Cleese said. “But I think it’s particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where you’re not checking everything you say critically before you move on. What you have to be able to do is to build without knowing where you’re going because you’ve never been there before.”
“That’s what creativity is — you have to be allowed to build. And a lot of comedians now are sitting there and when they think of something, they say something like, ‘Can I get away with it? I don’t think so. So and so got into trouble, and he said that, oh, she said that.’ You see what I mean? And that’s the death of creativity,” he added.
Cleese said that wokeness stands in opposition to creation.
“You can do the creation and then criticize it, but you can’t do them at the same time. So if you’re worried about offending people and constantly thinking of that, you are not going to be very creative. So I think it has a disastrous effect,” he added.
Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed on Tubi, Google Play, YouTube Movies, or VIMEO On Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.