Our local newspaper ran an article on April the 9th, bearing the title:
Cambrian News archives reveal Python film was never banned!
which you might think would be clear enough, wouldn't you?
I discovered that
Life of Brian returned to the Commodore in March 1982 as a double-bill with Airplane, and had a further six showings. Thus it had at least
fourteen showings in Aberystwyth well before the Pythons ever came here - some ban !
In spite of this, BBC Wales have produced a "documentary" called
Monty Python in Aberystwyth in which they seem to claim that it was banned for 30 years, although they do mention the March 1981 showings very briefly. This is a contradiction, of course, besides, we know that the sub-committee of five Ceredigion councilors
passed Life of Brian, they didn't ban it. The screenings were all perfectly legal and there's no reason to believe otherwise.
It's on BBC2 in Wales tonight at 10pm. If you're not in Wales, it's on
Youtube.
In my view the whole premise of the show had been completely undermined and it is totally flawed. It may even breach OFCOM regulations.
I noticed that quite a few of the people involved in the making of this show have had some involvement with Doctor Who or related series, including the Director, Producer and one executive Producer. Avowed atheist Russell T Davies is featured extensively and the narrator is David Tennant.
The show appeared with astonishing rapidity on various illegal torrent websites (keep well clear of those) and was posted on YouTube by "AtheistMediaBlog" - no surprise there.
Ian