Television: Holy Flying Circus | Brave New World with Stephen Hawking

Given BBC 4’s propensity for biopics of “troubled” (ie gay, alcoholic, chronically grumpy) comedians, it was only a matter of time before they got around to the Monty Python troupe.

But how to tackle their sprawling saga? Only one of them, the late Graham Chapman, was gay and alcoholic – he’d need a biopic of his own to deal with that – and their internecine bickering was of the very British niggling variety, rather than the required form of furniture-throwing melodrama.

So instead of attempting a decades-spanning overview, Tony Roche, a key contributor to The Thick of It, has written Holy Flying Circus, which hones in on one of the most notorious chapters in their story, namely the furore surrounding the release of their theologically-themed magnum opus, Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

But this presents further problems. In recent years documentary-makers have apparently decided that the Brian controversy is the only interesting aspect of the Python’s career, meaning that it is, I’m sure, familiar to us all.

Roche has therefore opted to recount this well-worn tale in the style of an off-the-wall comedy written by the Pythons themselves; in effect, a post-modern spoof of the biopic genre. And that in turn presents even bigger problems, since Roche’s attempts to emulate the unique cadences of Python humour often feel forced and unfunny, although the meta-textual nature of the piece at least allows him to acknowledge this via characters denigrating “the sub-Python, self-referential, quasi-avant-garde posturing.” He has his cake and eats it greedily.

But that very self-consciousness is often as much a boon as a burden; although broadly true overall, it revels in ironic foreshadowing and its looseness with the facts (Christ himself introduces it, saying, “Most of what you are about to see never actually happened. It’s largely made up. Like the Bible.”) and generally succeeds as a flawed but fun curio.

You’d imagine that the real-life Pythons would admire its ambition and irreverence; Eric Idle (played by suitably wide-eyed comedian Steve Punt) might even smile at his depiction as a cheerfully amoral scoundrel only interested in financial gain. And Roche makes sure that his permanently sarcastic and combative John Cleese (an astoundingly accurate recreation by Darren Boyd) announces himself as “loosely based on my Basil Fawlty persona”.

Indeed, the cast are uniformly excellent, with the likes of Rufus Jones as Terry Jones – replete with OTT rhotacism – doubling up as the comically nice-to-a-fault Michael Palin’s wife in typical Python style. And while the knockabout aesthetic demands that the actors deliver impressions rather than three-dimensional characters, Roche ultimately sketches a surprisingly poignant account of the relationship between Cleese and Palin – upon whom the focus rests, since it was they who opted to defend Life of Brian during a fractious televised encounter with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark – and effectively makes his points about freedom of speech, religious intolerance and the artistic validity of offensiveness in comedy.

You could argue that his depiction of point-missing Christian groups as wackily dysfunctional misfits (led by Mark Heap in default twitchy weirdo mode) cheapens his argument somewhat, and that afflicting one of them with Tourette’s is little more than a contrived excuse to indulge his penchant for colourful swearing. And that the fictional producer of the chat show on which Cleese and Palin appeared is a blatant facsimile of Rik Mayall’s swaggering Flashheart character from Blackadder. Roche even goes to the lengths of naming him Alan Dick; subtle it ain’t.

But that’s also part of the messy charm of Holy Flying Circus. It initially feels like a misjudged disaster, but once you get used to what Roche is trying to achieve, it’s difficult to resist its giddily freewheeling pull. It’s followed at 10:30pm by a repeat of the Friday Night, Saturday Morning episode featuring the Pythons vs Christianity showdown.

Incidentally, Graham Chapman, who would normally be the focus of a film such as this, barely features at all. I’d like to think that’s not only a deliberate reflection of his famously distant personality, but also yet another two-fingered riposte to standard biopic conventions. If I were Roche, I’d argue that it was.

Quake ye tiny mortals and gaze upon Brave New World with Stephen Hawking, a new series in which the esteemed scientist plays host to a globe-trotting group of leading boffins – including Robert Winston, Richard Dawkins and David Attenborough – as they examine some of the most striking scientific developments of recent years.

Essentially Tomorrow’s World with added gravitas, it proffers up myriad wonders such as a driverless car engineered by Google, a wheelchair powered by the mind, an exoskeleton that can mobilise paraplegics and allow a man the strength of three (we really are in superhero territory here), and a robot that can learn like a child. Your minds, they will be blown.

But like Tomorrow’s World, it then quells our excitement by announcing that these potentially world-changing breakthroughs are “a long way from market”, basically meaning that no one other than Bono will be able to afford a magical driverless automobile in our lifetime, let alone the next. Which is a bit disappointing, frankly.

HOLY FLYING CIRCUS

Wednesday, BBC 4, 9pm

BRAVE NEW WORLD WITH STEPHEN HAWKING

Monday, Channel 4, 8pm