Shades of Monty Python sketch in Cleese’s BBC interview complaint
JOHN CLEESE wins the “Joker of the Year” award.
“This interview is dead – it’s an ex-interview”, he said, pulling off his ear phones. Or words to that effect. Cleese’s recent bad-tempered encounter with the BBC’s Karishma Vaswani brought to mind his dead parrot sketch from his Monty Python days.
Vaswani was perfectly polite as she questioned Cleese about his thoughts on “cancel culture” since he was doing stand-up shows in Singapore and Bangkok.
He looked like the man who had walked into a pet shop with a dead parrot. One almost feared the 82-year-old former actor and comedian would have a heart attack.
He has now said he will complain to the BBC about the way Vaswani had tried to portray him.
“I replied courteously and in full. I explained that if parents were over protective, it did not prepare children well when they entered the real and often not-very-nice world,” he tweeted. “She then asked a disjointed question, clearly trying to portray me as old-fashioned, uncaring and basically harmful.”
He added that his response had been “totally ignored” by Vaswani, who had then asked about the pandemic and US comedian Dave Chapelle, who recently hit out against cancel culture.
Cleese then removed his headphones, as it was “not the interview I had agreed to”.
“Karishma had no interest in a discussion with me,” he said. “She wanted only the role of prosecutor. The BBC needs to train her again.”
The BBC, in a statement, said the journalist had asked Cleese about his tour of Asia as well as exploring themes around cancel culture, which feature in his upcoming work, including a Channel 4 documentary.
“This was a fair and appropriate interview which touched on topics that John Cleese has previously been vocal about as well as themes within his new tour,” a BBC spokeswoman said.
“Our presenter is an excellent and experienced journalist who conducted the interview entirely within our editorial guidelines.”
Last month, he cancelled an appearance at Cambridge University after a visiting speaker was banned for a Hitler impression.
Cleese, who said he had done a similar impression on a Monty Python show, explained he was “blacklisting myself before someone else does”.
Some people might take the view that “the comedian is dead” and now “he’s an ex-comedian”.
But the Cleese-Vaswani sketch is so entertaining that the BBC has put it online for the amusement of millions of viewers. The pair should go on tour together.