Monty Python in Aberystwyth Page #5

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after a long day's work

and I was watching Richard and Judy,

as one does,

and who was on it but John Cleese.

He was talking about his films

and all the rest of it

and he happened to speak about

The Life Of Brian.

And he said, "You realise it's still

banned in some towns in Wales?"

It got me thinking.

I knew Sue Jones-Davies

appeared in the film.

It'd make a great story if it was

indeed banned in Aberystwyth.

I went through

all the necessary research

and as far as we were aware,

at that time.

The local BBC reporter rang me up

and said,

"Do you realise you're a mayor

of a town

"of which the film you starred in,

or was in, has banned it?"

And I said, "No, I didn't know that".

"I've looked into it," he said,

"and it was banned."

I thought it was a fantastic story.

It just made it that Sue was

the mayor of the town.

The story I wrote initially

sparked off a Facebook campaign

and a student

who was running that campaign

went to the National Library of

Wales here in Aberystwyth,

did some research

through some old newspapers

and discovered

that it was indeed shown in '81.

Is this some kind of joke?

But we're not really sure

why it was shown in '81

and not in '79

when the film was released.

Not many people even knew

it had been shown.

We thought it'd been banned

for 30 years

and the ban was still in place.

And eventually so many people came up

to me in the street and said,

"Go for it, Sue. Show it again."

So we did.

Just this extraordinary sequence

of affairs

that Sue has been in the film

and ends up Mayor of Aberystwyth

and hopefully the film can now be

released in Aberystwyth.

We hope mayors all over the country

who are still resisting the film

will take Sue's example

and go forward and unban it.

It kicked off the idea with Sue

that it would be a good idea

to almost borrow

this legend and use the situation

to generate public enthusiasm as a

fundraiser for her mayoral charity.

Sue told us she'd got permission

to show the film

and she'd like to do a special event

here and we said yes.

We sorted the dates out and

she said, "Shall I ask Terry?"

And that happened. Terry asked

Michael and it all snowballed

and got completely out of hand,

really.

It sort of turned into this big, big

special event

that none of us envisaged it would

be. But it's quite exciting!

And so the plan was formed.

On the 28th March 2009,

the university arts centre

would screen The Life Of Brian

for the first time ever

in Aberystwyth.

Well, apart from a few days in 1981.

But there were still people

in the town

who thought the ban should stand,

including the vicar,

Canon Start Bell.

The film, at its root,

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