Marriage Guidance Counsellor

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This article is about the Monty Python comedy sketch. For marriage guidance, see relationship counseling and counselling.

The Marriage Guidance Counsellor sketch is from the second Monty Python's Flying Circus episode, "Sex and Violence". It was also featured in the 1971 spinoff film And Now For Something Completely Different, and is notable as being one of Carol Cleveland's first appearances on the series.

The sketch features Michael Palin and Carol Cleveland as a married couple (Arthur and Deirdre Pewtey) and Eric Idle as their marriage counsellor. The marriage guidance counsellor flirts with a receptive Mrs. Pewtey rather than giving the couple advice, and Mr. Pewtey fails to react to this behaviour and stand up for himself. In the television version, an American cowboy (played by John Cleese) convinces him he must "be a man," while in the film version, the voice of God convinces him. The television version of the sketch ends with Mr. Pewtey getting hit in the head with a chicken by a man in a suit of armour (rumoured to be played by Terry Gilliam). In And Now For Something Completely Different, it ends with a 16-ton weight being dropped onto Pewtey's head.