Monty Python Wiki
Advertisement

The Death of Mary Queen of Scots is a sketch that appears in "How to Recognise Different Parts of the Body," the twenty-second episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Synopsis[]

A voiceover (John Cleese) points out:

20. The armpits

21. The bottom two thirds of the nape of the neck

22. The nipple (pointing to a radio dial)

The camera zooms out to show two Pepperpots (Cleese and Graham Chapman) listening to the radio. The voiceover presents a new episode of a radio drama series: The Death of Mary Queen of Scots. It consists of an actress screaming and objects crashing. The Pepperpots look at each other in disapproval.

The first Pepperpot turns the radio up to hear the next episode, which is made up of even more screaming and cluttering objects. An actor says "I think she's dead" and the actress replies "no I'm not" and the screaming continues, with gunshots and explosions being heard.

The voiceover concludes the drama series, then says "and now, Radio 4 will explode". The radio burns up and explodes. The Pepperpots decide to watch the TV instead and they move the sofa 180 degrees so it's angled towards a TV.

Advertisement