STEP THIS WAY, MR CLEESE

The Ministry Of Silly Walks John Cleese plays a civil servant responsible for funding to develop spectacularly silly walks Cleese’s bowler-hatted minister, right, takes an extraordinary Whitehall walk – a finely choreographed and marvellously straight-faced performance of overextended and twisted limbs – into comedy legend. Indisputably one of TV’s favourite sketches of any era, it has an app of its own, an annual Silly Walk March in Brno in the Czech Republic, and a silly-walking bowler-hatted figure even features as the sign for a pedestrian crossing in Ørje, Norway.

The idea emanated from a Cleese/ Chapman session, during which they saw a strangely stooped man negotiating the steep hill outside. However, they passed the idea on to Palin and Jones, who developed the sketch. They created an imaginary ministry where Silly Walks vie with Defence, Health and Social Security, and where a hopeful Mr Pudey petitions for a grant to develop his own silly walk. He is unsuccessful, but does manage to gain a place on the Concorde-type, Anglo-French project ‘La Marche Futile’.

Although the dialogue itself is topclass Pythonesque ‘satire’, it is Cleese’s famous walk that accounts for the sketch’s popularity. But there is one person who claims never to have enjoyed it – John Cleese, who reveals: ‘The only reason it became so iconic was the brilliance of my performance, because I never thought it was a very good sketch.

‘On the first night that we did it on stage, in Brighton, I did it to complete silence; it was appallingly embarrassing. I was doing all this stuff and the audience was just sitting there. It was awful, and I said, “You see?” I came off, I was triumphant, I said, “You see, it’s no bloody good. I never want to do it again.” And they said: “Oh, please, please do it just once more tomorrow.” And I went on the next night and the audience laughed. And then I was stuck with it. I was stuck with the bloody thing and I had to do it every night.’

Failing to have the sketch removed from the live shows, Cleese would bait Palin midset with his hatred of it. He was relieved in later years to excuse himself from performing it at all on account of his artificial knee and hip.

The first night’s audience sat in complete silence. It was appallingly embarrassing.