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| John Cleese blasts the BBC in lecture on the rise of stupidity | John Cleese blasts the BBC in lecture on the rise of stupidity |
| (4 months later) | |
| It was hard to know what to expect of a solo show by John Cleese, organised by campaign group Hacked Off. On 29 June, the comedian tweeted that it would be a “speech” but, by 5 July, he was calling it a “new one-hour comedy show”. | It was hard to know what to expect of a solo show by John Cleese, organised by campaign group Hacked Off. On 29 June, the comedian tweeted that it would be a “speech” but, by 5 July, he was calling it a “new one-hour comedy show”. |
| Cleese has experimented with standup as crowd-funding before. The audience for The Alimony Tour helped to pay for his third divorce. The £30 ticket for this event (including entry in a draw for a dinner with Cleese) was bankrolling Hacked Off’s campaign to seek judicial review of the government’s decision to abandon the planned second phase of the Leveson inquiry into journalistic ethics, which would investigate the relationship between the press and police. | Cleese has experimented with standup as crowd-funding before. The audience for The Alimony Tour helped to pay for his third divorce. The £30 ticket for this event (including entry in a draw for a dinner with Cleese) was bankrolling Hacked Off’s campaign to seek judicial review of the government’s decision to abandon the planned second phase of the Leveson inquiry into journalistic ethics, which would investigate the relationship between the press and police. |
| On Sunday at 7.30pm, there were 250 people in the Ondaatje theatre at London’s Royal Geographic Society, which seems popular with former members of Monty Python: Michael Palin has been the society’s president for three years. | On Sunday at 7.30pm, there were 250 people in the Ondaatje theatre at London’s Royal Geographic Society, which seems popular with former members of Monty Python: Michael Palin has been the society’s president for three years. |
| Above the stage hung a vast black and white photograph of Cleese looking gloomy, beside the words, “Why There Is No Hope”. It soon became clear that anyone drawn in by the love of Basil Fawlty would get only the intemperate manner, as Cleese read a 45-minute lecture from a large Autocue screen about how culture has been engulfed by stupidity. | Above the stage hung a vast black and white photograph of Cleese looking gloomy, beside the words, “Why There Is No Hope”. It soon became clear that anyone drawn in by the love of Basil Fawlty would get only the intemperate manner, as Cleese read a 45-minute lecture from a large Autocue screen about how culture has been engulfed by stupidity. |
| The number one exhibit was President Trump, unsurprisingly, and, in content, unoriginally; a photo of the politician with his mouth hanging open got a big laugh. Other representatives of the new obtuse ranged from the staff of luxury hotels – in Miami, when he checked in as “Mr Incognito”, a concierge refused to let him collect an item addressed to “Cleese” – to current BBC executives, who are “absolutely fucking clueless”. | The number one exhibit was President Trump, unsurprisingly, and, in content, unoriginally; a photo of the politician with his mouth hanging open got a big laugh. Other representatives of the new obtuse ranged from the staff of luxury hotels – in Miami, when he checked in as “Mr Incognito”, a concierge refused to let him collect an item addressed to “Cleese” – to current BBC executives, who are “absolutely fucking clueless”. |
| The BBC head of comedy, for whom Cleese is currently shooting a second series of the sitcom Hold the Sunset, was described as “Shane Someone”, and derided for having recently said that he wouldn’t commission Monty Python these days because, in Cleese’s spin, “it didn’t fit in with the BBC’s policy of social engineering”. (Shane Allen had suggested that the six white, college-educated Pythons lacked the diversity sought by the corporation today.) | The BBC head of comedy, for whom Cleese is currently shooting a second series of the sitcom Hold the Sunset, was described as “Shane Someone”, and derided for having recently said that he wouldn’t commission Monty Python these days because, in Cleese’s spin, “it didn’t fit in with the BBC’s policy of social engineering”. (Shane Allen had suggested that the six white, college-educated Pythons lacked the diversity sought by the corporation today.) |
| Cleese declared that, in November, he plans to leave Britain “for some time”, partly because he “so hates this government”, but mainly because of the BBC, which “has no idea what it’s doing now”. | Cleese declared that, in November, he plans to leave Britain “for some time”, partly because he “so hates this government”, but mainly because of the BBC, which “has no idea what it’s doing now”. |
| But, true to the show’s patronage, the greatest annoyance to the speaker was to be found in journalism. American and Australian journalists, he claimed, interviewed him because they loved his work; British interviewers arrived intent on negativity and personal intrusion. Veering from analysis to amateur psychiatry, Cleese claimed, without supporting evidence, that his “mental health is better than Paul Dacre’s”. | But, true to the show’s patronage, the greatest annoyance to the speaker was to be found in journalism. American and Australian journalists, he claimed, interviewed him because they loved his work; British interviewers arrived intent on negativity and personal intrusion. Veering from analysis to amateur psychiatry, Cleese claimed, without supporting evidence, that his “mental health is better than Paul Dacre’s”. |
| “Who is Paul Dacre?,” the audience member in front of me asked her companion, who didn’t know either. Her emergency phone Google brought up the face of the editor of the Daily Mail. The couple shrugged, suggesting that they had come as fans of the comedic, rather than polemical, strain of Cleese’s work. | “Who is Paul Dacre?,” the audience member in front of me asked her companion, who didn’t know either. Her emergency phone Google brought up the face of the editor of the Daily Mail. The couple shrugged, suggesting that they had come as fans of the comedic, rather than polemical, strain of Cleese’s work. |
| After his speech, Cleese took a few audience questions, mainly Python-related. In the second half, he talked on stage to Graham Johnson, an ex-tabloid reporter, and John Ford, a former broadsheet “blagger” of confidential documents and details, who told stories that may yet lead to all leave being cancelled in the legal departments of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers. | After his speech, Cleese took a few audience questions, mainly Python-related. In the second half, he talked on stage to Graham Johnson, an ex-tabloid reporter, and John Ford, a former broadsheet “blagger” of confidential documents and details, who told stories that may yet lead to all leave being cancelled in the legal departments of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers. |
| Cleese proved an impressive interviewer – intelligent, sensitive, well-informed – and perhaps this is a role in which BBC executives should consider using him. For the rest, it seems a curious career path for the co-creator of Python, Fawlty and A Fish Called Wanda – from silly walks to angry talks. | Cleese proved an impressive interviewer – intelligent, sensitive, well-informed – and perhaps this is a role in which BBC executives should consider using him. For the rest, it seems a curious career path for the co-creator of Python, Fawlty and A Fish Called Wanda – from silly walks to angry talks. |
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