I never expected the Spanish Inquisition. How bureaucracy turned my life into a Python sketch

When filmmaker Julian Doyle received a Home Office letter declaring his wife’s residency had “expired,” it felt like a scene from one of the Monty Python films he helped create. Now, as he faces the prospect of leaving his home and family in Britain, he reflects on how bureaucracy has become a parody of itself

I have spent my career trying to make the absurd believable. Editing Life of Brian, directing Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting, staging the madness of Iron Maiden’s Can I Play with Madness — my life has been defined by bringing the surreal to the screen. Yet nothing in film has prepared me for the surrealism of Britain’s immigration system.

This week my wife Suki and I received a letter from the Home Office informing us that she no longer has the right to remain in the country. We were told we must leave, or appeal within ten days. The reason? A form was filled in late and a residency card was mistakenly converted into an e-visa. When I went to renew the e-visa the document simply said, “PARTNER EXPIRED.” Was I dead? Was my marriage over by administrative decree?

As someone who was born in London and has lived in Britain all my life, the thought of leaving my home on the Isle of Wight, my daughter, and my grandchildren because of a clerical misstep is absurd in the truest Python sense. I have brought millions of pounds into this country through the films, music videos and cultural projects I have worked on. Yet here I am, facing the prospect of selling my house and moving to Spain to remain with my wife.

If I were editing this story for the screen, I would probably cut it as too far-fetched. A man who worked closely with the creators of the ‘Spanish Inquisition’ sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus now receives his own letter of expulsion from the Home Office? It writes itself. Bureaucracy as the villain. A Kafkaesque pile of forms and deadlines where the hero is felled not by logic but by paperwork.

But beyond the comedy is a more serious reflection on the country I love. Britain’s culture — its humour, its imagination, its very brand abroad — has been built on creativity, on bending rules and reinventing forms. Yet the system that now defines our future here is mechanical, unforgiving, humourless.

I do not want to rant. Many people face greater hardships than we do, and I am fortunate to have had a career that allowed me to work with some of the most extraordinary talents of our age. But I cannot help thinking how easily these moments of arbitrary decision-making could become the raw material for another Python film – Bureaucracy: The Movie. Scene one: a letter arrives declaring “partner expired”. Scene two: a frantic call to an emergency line, followed by an official insisting that you upload your life history to a portal by Monday morning. Scene three: the expulsion notice lands on Tuesday.

In the end, perhaps this is the only way I can process what is happening: as a continuation of the absurdist tradition I once helped shape. But it is also a cautionary tale. When rules are applied without flexibility or common sense, they cease to serve justice and start to parody it. Britain, of all countries, should recognise the difference.

“As for me, I will fight the appeal. But if we lose, I am not going to abandon my wife, whatever the system believes should happen with our marriage. We are loving partners for the rest of our lives and if this means setting up a new life in another country, so be it. But as we set sail, with our dog and all our belongings from the Isle of Wight, at least I will do so knowing that even in the darkest moments, comedy is still the best way of telling the truth.

Julian Doyle is a distinguished British filmmaker with an outstanding career in the film industry. He is widely recognised for his long-standing collaboration with Monty Python, where he worked on their most celebrated films including Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and The Meaning of Life. While internationally recognised for his work in film, he is also an expert on biblical history and is the author of multiple books on the subject including The Gospel According to Monty Python, The Secret Life and Hidden Death of the Galilean, and Who Killed Jesus?

Main image: Filmmaker Julian Doyle at his home in the UK. The Life of Brian editor has described the Home Office’s decision to revoke his wife’s visa as “absurd”. Photo: The Double Agents