SAY CLEESE!
John Cleese might be co-starring in the heartwarming new family film Clifford the Big Red Dog, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost his acerbic wit.
The Monty Python comedian recently returned to the road with his ongoing Why There Is No Hope tour, in which, among other things, he riffs on humanity’s intractable idiocy.
“What I like about this stage of my career is the people who hate me don’t buy tickets,” the British comedy legend, who just turned 82, says. “I have a pre-selected audience of people who like me and what I do. I don’t have to worry about wokefolk or anyone like that because there aren’t any in the audience.”
After the pandemic gave him an extended break, Cleese returns to screens this week as a magical animal rescuer in Clifford, a live-action adaptation of the popular kids’ books written by Norman Bridwell. The star of Fawlty Towers and A
Fish Called Wanda has been busy for a man who just a few years ago said he was hoping to retire to an island villa. But during a video call from London, Cleese’s torrent of words suggests he’s far from slowing down.
Q What’s it like being back on the road?
A Doing the shows is the easiest part of touring. The worst part of touring is the air travel and the packing ... The actual performance is the easiest part of the day.
Q You’re back onscreen this week in Clifford the Big Red Dog. What made you want to be a part of that?
A It was nice to play someone who is playful and slightly mysterious in a totally unthreatening way. Someone who is wise and optimistic. It was just completely different from what I normally get. It’s also, frankly, much easier acting than comedy. Comedy is much harder, which no one ever appreciates, least of all the people who vote on Oscars. Being a good dramatic actor requires you to be believable and that’s it. A comedic actor has to be believable and then add all the comedy technique on top of that.
Q How has your approach to humour and comedy changed over the course of your career?
A I think as you move from medium to medium, it makes different calls on you. I did sketches for a number of years and then after I’d been doing sketches for five or six years I got drawn into writing sitcoms. Then eventually I wanted to write movies and of course writing a movie is harder than writing a sketch and requires more skill and understanding. So you get stretched by the changes in the mediums and you either respond to it or you can’t.
Q You mentioned the wokefolk right off the top. Your comedy was a big part of my household growing up. Are people more sensitive to comedy nowadays?
A I’m sure they are ... If you express any clear opinion, you’ll always upset someone. This is why politicians try to say nothing because the moment you say something definitive, you’ve upset someone. It doesn’t particularly bother me. I’ll listen to why they’re upset and sometimes I’ll think, ‘Maybe that wasn’t quite right.’ But most of the
time, I think, ‘No, people, particularly woke people, are far too sensitive.’ They are often sensitive in a way that I don’t really admire. There’s a lot of posturing and virtue signalling ... and they find it very hard to understand irony. They think if you say a word that can be bad. No, a word’s meaning comes from its context, not from a dictionary. That’s why if you’re being ironic and sarcastic, you are using words that are completely opposite of what it is you are trying to convey. This kind of subtlety is beyond many of the wokefolk because I think many of
them are literal-minded and they’re lacking in a sense of humour.
Q So what’s the future of comedy then?
A I don’t know. I think there’s two things going on at the moment that are incredibly important. One is the Trump Republicans trying to destroy democracy in America. The other is the people on the left — the woke folk — trying to destroy everything to do with humour and actually not preparing people for the real world.