John Cleese has 'no intention' of cutting Loretta scene from Life of Brian stage adaptation
John Cleese has insisted on keeping the Loretta scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian for the film's stage adaptation.
The British actor recently took to Twitter to clarify a report suggesting he had been advised to cut the scene from his stage adaptation of the 1979 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)," he tweeted. "I said that we'd had a table-reading of the latest draft in NYC a year ago."
He explained that the draft had been criticised for including the potentially offensive scene about a man wanting to have a baby.
"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 wrote. "These were absolutely top-class Broadway performers and they were adamant that we would not get away with doing the scene in NYC!"
John added, "Producers tend to be scaredy-cats, and they don't remember that the protests in NYC when (Life of) Brian was released meant we never needed to do publicity!"
In the scene, Eric Idle's character Stan insists that he wants to be known as Loretta and to have babies, with him declaring, "It's every man's right to have babies if you want them."
