After 40 years, Fawlty Towers is set to return to our TV screens! So, after all these years, why now? John Cleese joins us to explain! #JohnCleese #FawltyTowers #Comedy
Faulty Towers and 'A Fish Called Wanda' are both priceless. I laugh as hard now, after 20 viewings, as I did originally. I've seen all the Monty Python episodes and movies and LOVED them all! John Cleese is a legend.
There's a lot of experimental comedy with Monty Python and a lot of it is not that funny. However, a lot also ends up being very funny, and appreciate that they just tried "everything" even if it ended up with some hits and some misses. But overall, I think everyone finds something funny there. Fawlty Towers on the other hand is just brilliant. Nobody can watch an entire episode without laughing.
Yes they were in a way. Part of the UK cultural invasion in the '60's. The Beatles revolutionized Rock music to a whole new creative level. Influencing every band in the decades ahead. Monty Python revolutionized and opened up comedy with the level of absurdity and irreverence to just about anything.
As with the Beatles, people would discuss who their favourite Python was. I suppose it happens with other acts, but I have only ever had discussions (on this aspect) about those two. Otoh, I may be living in a bubble.
He is what I would call an 'ascended master'. He sees the inherent absurdity of life crystal clear, while still retaining a wonderfully generous worldview. God bless him; he is a treasure.
I believe you are right. The master makes you see yourself, the ego, the mind identified false personality in all its absurdity. John, like all masters, holds up a mirror in front of us. But the difference is that he, god bless him, holds up a fun house mirror.
I met him twice, once in Dallas promoting world soccer tournament, at that time A fish Called Wanda was out, he signed my Fawlty Towers complete script book as “ Best Fishes”, I love his humor, Fawlty Towers is one of the funniest comedy shows. 👌
@@allanallen1835 Same here; they were the governing force in the development of my humoristic gland - and I am circling back to their bits and flicks and all the good stuff from the Flying Circus ever so much. So thanks to all the Pythons - on Earth and in Heaven alike 🙌🙌🙌🙏🙏🙏
Love Cleese but worried about the reboot. He definitely has a curiosity though which is cool. I had the pleasure of meeting him years ago at a book signing, and I asked if he could sign a copy for my girlfriend who was working and he delved into a dozen questions about her work at a local sports arena! I didn’t mind as it was a chance to talk to him longer and he was leading the conversation! 🥰
A wonderful and extremely funny man, as a life time Hotelier , Faulty Towers is a must, it was shown to students in some of the best Hotel Schools around the World
Fwiw, I don't think Cleese can take much of anything seriously. He is, imo, one of those comedians with no off switch. He likes to laugh, he likes to make other laugh, at the end of the day he fundamentally can't help himself... I'd there is a joke hanging in the air, he can't NOT go for it. A few comedians are like that. No off switch. With Cleese it's a blessing. Dude is a stone cold genius of comedy. Master of sketch comedy. Master of the sitcom. Master of the comedy feature film. With and without Python, consistently one of the funniest human beings on earth. It's good he doesn't have an off switch.
@@janm2473 Like Laurel and Hardy,you always need the silly and serious playing off each other. Goes for cultures as much as comedy duos.I don’t know if you know this,but John is English and he is making fun of the English…You have kind of proved my point for me and yes they can laugh at themselves as a culture.
I Love you John!! After a lifetime of working in the church, you're just spot on, a bunch of silly costumes with people pretending to be so incredibly serious and pompous. The degree of pomposity is usually inversely proportional to the niceness of the people involved! At least that's been my experience. Thanks for the incredible laughs, fun and a lifetime of hysterical giggles! We all love and adore you! 💖💖💖 Adrian laughing along with you in Bermuda!!! 💖💖
Remember Faulty Tower Wikipedia Fawlty Towers is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and, in 2019, it was named the greatest ever British TV sitcom by a panel of comedy experts compiled by the Radio Times. The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay on the English Riviera. The plots centre on the tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth) who often is the peacemaker and voice of reason, and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs). They show their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests and tradespeople. The idea of the show came from Cleese after he stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon, in 1970 (along with the rest of the Monty Python troupe), where he encountered the eccentric hotel owner Donald Sinclair. Stuffy and snobbish, Sinclair treated guests as though they were a hindrance to his running of the hotel (a waitress who worked for him stated "it was as if he didn't want the guests to be there"). Sinclair was the inspiration for Cleese's character Basil Fawlty.
In '88 my wife and I were in Fiji when there was some political unrest and there was a strict curfew and travel restrictions that meant we were stuck in the Nandi Travelodge all day. There was no TV or radio but they did have an old TV with a VCR and one tape. It was Fawlty Towers "Basil the Rat" episode. We had nothing else to do but spend the day in the bar with a few other guests and the hotel help and all the Fiji Bitter we could hold and we watched this one episode about five times. In the end we were all laughing so hard, especially the help! What a memory!
I got to see John Cleese in Cincinnati, Ohio a couple years ago when he came to the Taft Theatre as part of the screenings and Q&A he did for Holy Grail. Unfortunately, I didn't get to say anything to him personally. Instead of tossing him an old Python line or mentioning my favorite sketch, I think I'd be more likely to simply say "Thank you Mr. Cleese. Thank you for all the laughs you provided at times when I needed a laugh, and more importantly at times when I didn't know I needed a laugh." I am excited about the Fawlty Towers reboot and I'm hoping there are chances for us to pick up a stream of the series in the US.
I with Cleese about the life forces about which we know nothing but sometimes (and more so for some people) there are clear evidences; the clairvoyants, telepathy, premonitions etc. We can only view the world through our time limited bodies and finite minds.
Comedy is supposed to be offensive, if we cannot laugh at the way we are as human beings there's not much in life worth living for. Who's perfect, NO ONE!!!
John Cleese is a wonderful person in all his produktion . Only that to give how we all can be faul in some sekvenses in our life . And how we try to excuse our mistakes .
True story. My wife and I watched "A Fish Called Wanda" in a movie theatre in Durban.soon after it was released. At one stage (I think it was during Palin's chips interrogation) that I just hid my head in my wife's lap, because I could not stop laughing.)
Unlike John - who hates cancel culture - this channel removed my comment about the serious issues John raised in this interview. So instead I'll simply say that I miss the 'tache!
I trust that he will get the reboot right, he seems as sharp as ever. I like that he states that it will not be as funny as the original, but it can still be funny.
@@Omnicient. Possibly, although he's 83 and probably isn't short a couple of quid. You say reboots have never worked. I can't think of many reboots of sitcoms though? Some of them have been remade with different casts, that definitely wouldn't work. Will this be as good as the original Fawlty Towers? No. It can still be funny and worth it though. I'm looking forward to seeing him play Basil Fawlty again.
I'm overly sensitive to people's behaviour and psychologies and I'm not keen on his for reasons it would take too long to go into here. British tv has never been weaker with audiences falling away. The American's have the talent to make programmes that billions want to watch; the British lost that years ago. I use a firestick and so I've turned away from terrestrial tv. When I do watch it's for Strictly Come Dancing which for me is the BBC's greatest achievement but when I very occasionally watch new dramas from the uk they all look and sound the same and the actors self-consciously acting instead of allowing us to see them as real people/characters. It all started faltering in the mid-80s onwards with few exceptions like Cracker. I remember 1975 and 1979 when FT was something else. I often wondered why he didn't come up with something as popular. The idea for FT was taken from real life and less so from talent! I can recommend firesticks!
Balderdash. He pointed a finger at scientists - yet was completely unable to offer any explanation or evidence whatsoever to substantiate his own claim. Humanity's wish for something beyond this brief life has resulted in a plethora of ludicrous religions and nonsensical, repetitive holy books. It's all quite primitive.
