After four series of their Flying Circus, with the last ending on the BBC in 1974, The Monty Python comedy troupe decided it was time to create a human ladder and climb up onto the big screen. So using the Arthurian legend as a backdrop, Monty Python and the Holy Grail was born.

It gave Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and John Cleese, the perfect opportunity to coat this particular corner of history with their wacky surrealism on a far bigger scale.

932AD, and travelling through the woods with his trusty man servant is King Arthur (Graham Chapman). He is on a search for the bravest knights in the land to join him around his round table at Camelot.

Despite a few challenges he finds some too, before all are visited by God, who decides that they must go on a quest, to find the Holy Grail. The fact that God has spoken to them personally, means they don’t really have much of a choice, so bravely except.

But it is a journey fraught with danger at every turn, many encounters quite unusual, that will severely test the courage of Arthur and his men.

After the sketch format of both their TV show and their 1971 film And Now For Something Completely Different, the Monty Python gang decided to stick with one theme in history and continue that narrative throughout.

Of course this didn’t mean that it was any less ridiculous than their short sketches, especially as many of the scenes are self-contained sketches in their own right, but it certainly felt more filmic.

This re-release, supposedly to celebrate the film’s 48th and a half anniversary, holds up remarkably well considering its years. This is perhaps down to the surreal nature of the material, that doesn’t really age, and still remains the pinnacle of surrealism, as presented by a group of adult men behaving very silly indeed.

It was shot on half a shoestring of a budget, for only £4.52 in old money (equating to £282,035), and it shows; with all the actors in relatively basic costumes, real horses replaced with coconut halves, and their CGI equivalent of Terry Gilliam’s sublime animation in places. But despite it looking on the cheap side, it still remains highly effective. From the opening titles, with a subtitle gag, you know exactly what you’re letting yourself in for, from the cuckoo minds of the Monty Python team.

Some of it does feel a little dated, that’s only to be expected, but there are more hits than misses, as their brand of silliness becomes infectious. Perhaps the only disappointment is the film’s finale, which is intentionally flat, but may be just a tad brutal for today’s audiences.

The film would of course prove to be the inspiration for Eric Idle’s Spamalot musical, that won a Tony in 2005, which helps to continue the film’s legacy to this day.

It is wonderfully absurd, and a proved to be a challenge for the Python team of producing a feature beyond the confines of a sketch, which they passed with flying circus colours and still remains a British comedy classic.