My view on the 'Monty Python effect' – Peter Rhodes
When Hollywood's great Biblical movies were first screened, folk treated them with a certain reverence. Until 1979, that is, when the Monty Python spoof Life of Brian was released. It introduced us to a weird first-century Judea where the crowd misheard Jesus's sermon as “blessed are the cheese-makers” and an aristocratic Roman lady was called Incontinentia Buttox.
Today, 45 years after Life of Brian, it is almost impossible to view films such as The Greatest Story Ever Told without expecting a chorus of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
I mention the Python effect, having watched this week's debut of The Hardacres (C5), an everyday story of poor but proud Yorkshire fisher folk exploited by wicked capitalists. Are we supposed to have forgotten the other TV Hardacres, the ones in the 1980s spoof Brass (C4), an everyday story of poor but proud Lancashire mill folk exploited by wicked capitalists? I kept expecting the hard-nosed Bradley Hardacre (Timothy West) to pop up this week for a quick snarl at the proletariat. You'd think the makers of the new series would at least change the surname.
