CITY Screen, York, are celebrating the 40th anniversary of Monty Python's Life Of Brian with a screening timed perfectly to coincide with Easter week.

The iconoclastic work of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin will be shown at 8pm tomorrow (April 18).

Python's notorious 1979 film took aim at religious dogma with a seemingly scandalous parody of the life of Christ, with the late Chapman playing the part of Brian Cohen, a Jewish contemporary of Jesus who is mistaken for the Messiah.

The tongue-in-cheek use of the contours of Jesus’s life, from the manger to the cross, outraged many establishment figures at the time, leading to church protests and bans by local authorities. However, the Pythons maintained their target was human credulity, rather than faith or the divine.

Director Terry Jones applied a largely conventional style – backed by production values bankrolled by George Harrison’s Handmade Films – to offset the film's gleeful satirical bite.

Dave Taylor, City Screen's marketing manager, says: "Naturally, we were going to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Life Of Brian and there’s a poster, essay, lyric sheet, stickers and cut-out beard for Python fans on the night.

"What’s more, City Screen will then show An Accidental Studio, a documentary about Harrison’s Handmade Films, on April 29 at 6pm."

Handmade Films is shown through the eyes of the filmmakers, key personnel and the former Beatles lead guitarist who started it all. Unreleased archive Harrison interviews and footage is complemented by exclusive interviews with actor Richard E. Grant and filmmaker Neil Jordan and previously unseen interviews with the late Bob Hoskins, as the documentary explores Handmade’s baptism by fire, the risks it took in producing uniquely crafted intelligent films and the stories that grew up around it.

The screening will be followed by a recorded question-and-answer session with Sir Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Ray Cooper, hosted by Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Tickets can be booked on 0871 902 5747, in person at the Coney Street Picturehouse or at picturehouses.com.