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John Cleese has 'no intention' of cutting gender-identity joke from The Life of Brian show

John Cleese not cutting Loretta scene from upcoming stage show credit:Bang Showbiz
John Cleese not cutting Loretta scene from upcoming stage show credit:Bang Showbiz

John Cleese has "no intention" of cutting his famous Loretta scene from his 'Life of Brian' stage show.

The 83-year-old actor is set to open a stage version of his 1979 comedy movie in London in 2024 and has dismissed reports that he had been forced to cut the scene which sees a man named Stan claim he "wants to be a woman" called Loretta and wishes to get pregnant, insisting that despite being "strongly advised" to do so in order to avoid causing offence to those who hold different views on gender, the scene will remain intact.

He tweeted: "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 ). I said

that we'd had a table-reading of the latest draft in NYC a year ago and that 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 So someone in the audience had called a journalist and misreported me. Amazingly none of the British media called to check."

The 'Harry Potter' star also quashed rumours that the hit track 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' will be missing from the Monty Python stage show, quipping that he and the team would not "want to upset" composer Eric Idle.

In a follow-up tweet, he said: "Similarly, there are reports that " Bright Side " is going to be cut. Untrue, for a very good reason We don't want to upset Eric and it's his only contribution to the Life of Brian script."