‘From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
‘to cut a long story short’
spoken used to say that you are only going to mention the main facts of something
example: We went on tour playing rugby and …erm… one grey winter’s day in Cornwall….and the teams in Cornwall were very tough and hard…and cut a long story short, I took a blow to the head that fractured the frontal bone of my skull.
This is an excerpt from a podcast on BBC World Service in a programme called Outlook. You can listen to or download the whole podcast here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07h12z3