Film's editor tells how The Black Knight and Biggus Dickus were nearly cut

Some of the most memorable scenes in Monty Python’s films almost ended up on the cutting-room floor, their editor has revealed.

Guards stifling their titters at the name ‘Biggus Dickus’ and the tradesman who insists Brian haggle for a fake beard were almost dropped from the 1979 movie Life Of Brian, Julian Doyle has revealed.

Doyle said that John Cleese wanted to cut the Biggus Dickus scene after his character,  the centurion, left as it ‘became too silly for words’ with Michael Palin teasing the soldiers to make them laugh.

‘He originally felt Michael was moving out of character,’ Doyle said in comments reported by the Daily Telegraph. 

‘And although John was probably right, when we ran the finished film the audience were in such hysterics as the scene progressed that they did not care about the finer details, they just wanted it to go on and on.’

Doyle also worked on the Pythons’ 1975 Holy Grail film – and said the three-headed giant scene was thought too slow and the Black Knight sketch so outrageously bloody that it would kill the rest of the film.’

He said: ‘The Pythons were sticklers for perfection, and thought some of these skits were too silly, too offensive or too dull.'

But all the scenes were ultimately retained, with Doyle saying: ‘Thankfully, they changed their minds and the rest, as they say, is history.’

Doyle was speaking to promote his new book The Jericho Manuscript, a teenage mystery novel described as 'Sherlock Holmes meets the Da Vinci Code'

Published: 8 Jun 2023