Cleese Encounters

Adored around the world by an extraordinary spread of generations, from early Monty Python fans to teenagers for whom Fawlty Towers is a cult - and who know all the Monty Python catchphrases - John Cleese is the quintessential English eccentric.
Most of Cleese's admirers regard him as a sophisticated clown, like the repressed lawyer dangled by his legs from a window in A Fish Called Wanda - but he is a far more complex character than that. Others see him as one of the finest comedy writers ever, the creator, for example, of Basil Fawlty, the manic hotelier who thrashed his car with the bough of a tree. Still others are interested in his insightful discussions of marriage and the nature of the family. In fact, the introverted and awkwardly tall boy (six feet, four and three-quarter inches at the age of thirteen) from the dreary English village of Weston-super-Mare nearly became a lawyer, until he discovered Cambridge and the footlights at the dawn of the Swinging Sixties. Today, after masterful roles in films like Life of Brian ("miserable little film" - Malcolm Muggeridge), Clockwise, and A Fish Called Wanda (thought to be incredibly sexy in Japan), John Cleese may at last have the answer to that tormenting question from Wanda: "Do you have any idea what it's like being English?"