As far back as I can remember, the BBC was a constant in my house. I couldn’t tell you the characters in The Beachcombers, but was friendly with the happenings on Coronation Street. So, because of the constancy of British television in my house growing up, John Cleese was and is very close to my heart. Shows like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers helped me develop my sense of humour and still to this day, I find them hilarious.
As a result, I was thrilled when my husband bought me John Cleese’s new book So, Anyway… Mr. Cleese takes readers on a grand tour of his ascent in the entertainment world, from his humble beginnings in Weston-super-Mare and his early comedic days at Cambridge University, where he was studying to be a lawyer, (with future Python partner Graham Chapman) to the founding of the landmark comedy troupe that propelled him to worldwide notoriety. He was just days away from graduating Cambridge when he was visited by two BBC executives who offered him a job writing comedy for radio. That fateful day thrust him down a different path, writing for comedians such as Peter Sellers and eventually joining the five other Pythons to break new ground with a new kind of comedy — the valued invention, silliness and absurdity. Along the way, he met his wife and changed from a hesitant performer to a world-class actor.
Parts of So, Anyway… were eye opening for me. There is very little sentimentality about his childhood and absolute distaste for his young schooling experiences. I think this is where his scathing wit and reverence for parody come from. He doesn’t think of himself as a comedian or even funny. He sees himself as a writer and not a very good one at that. He paints himself as an accidental success in the book and throughout is most humble.
The book covers only the period from Cleese’s birth in 1939 to the taping of the first episode of Monty Python in 1969 and then skips over to the more recent Python farewell concerts, which I found disappointing, as his career after 1969 were the parts I was most interested in. Needless to say, the times that were written about contained many funny anecdotes and hilarious tales about him and his assorted cohorts. I got the impression that Cleese is a very serious man who finds it absurd that anyone finds him funny. In a recent interview with Peter Mansbridge, he stated that he still has no idea why the ‘Ministry of Funny Walks’ sketch is so funny. There is a theme of cheek for the reader and one gets the impression that the joke is on us and that the stiff upper lip that Cleese often satirizes is depicted so well because none is so stiff as his own.
If you, like me, love John Cleese’s collection of work then this is an interesting read, as you find out quite a bit about what makes the man tick. If not, then I wouldn’t give it a second thought. The book trudges along without much mention of what he is really known for and at times just wouldn’t be interesting for a non-Cleese enthusiast. 2.5/5
