| Author | Message | ||
     Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
This isn't at all horror-related but I bet there are some Monty Python/John Cleese fans here, aren't there? I've just managed to grab myself a ticket to see the comedy legend in person next June in Leeds - and I'm chuffed to bits! I haven't checked the local theatre websites for a while, did so this evening, and there it was - almost sold out nearly a year beforehand. But I've got a ticket, right up in the gods, sitting behind a pillar - but I've actually got a ticket!! Can't you tell I'm a little excited? So, if you're a fan, try googling "john cleese alimony tour uk" - he might be appearing near you too. I've already had the pleasure of seeing Michael Palin in person several times, and Terry Jones once, but I never thought I'd get the chance to see John Cleese ...  | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 92.40.236.49 |
Fab. Michael Palin did a book event with my shop and, as if it should come as a surprise, what a nice man he was too. I met Eric Idle once too, albeit briefly. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
I just booked too, Caroline! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.203.223 |
I saw Cleese interviewed on TV recently about this - seems like that last divorce cost him almost all he had, hence the tour (and the tour name, obviously). The only Pythons I've seen are Michael Palin (twice - once seated near us at a Terry Gilliam interview, and once in front of us at a Kodo Drummers concert) and Gilliam being interviewed a few times. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.176.6 |
Let's hope the financial incentive encourages him to be funny instead of talking in that deadpan RP voice about how the Liberal Democrats are breaking the mould of British politics and how we should all strive to be more spiritual. Cleese was always the most talented of the Pythons in actual comedy and the dullest in every other context. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
I disagree. I value much of his non-comedic output, especially his insightful work with Robin Skynner. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.231.118 |
Families and How to Survive Them. I've never even seen a copy of the book. I wonder whether Cleese is familiar with the work of Iván Böszörményi-Nagy who has done much in the field of familiy psychology and dynamics. As a comedian Cleese is unsurpassed. I nearly choked on a sandwich when I first saw the Python episode with the Silly Walk back in 1973 and I still think it's almost unbearably funny. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
The trouble may be that once he got into psychology, Cleese lost much of his edge. I thought A Fish Called Wanda barely funny and Fierce Creatures worse still. I (and others of the press) once lunched at a Liverpool taverna with Graham Chapman, who got spectacularly drunk and cut his hand while trying to smash a glass in the traditional way, and then had to be restrained by the publicist for Monty Python and the Holy Grail from staggering up the road to Toxteth, where he insisted his real audience was. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.158.238.131 |
What a brilliant memory of Chapman! gcw | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
Well, Cleese was heavily into psychology before the second series of Fawlty Towers and Life of Brian - two of the highest peaks in British comedy and to which Cleese made huge contributions. I like both Wanda and Creatures (though I agree that the latter is rather silly and cheap). | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.151.96.144 |
My father-in-law was in Rutland Weekend Television with Eric Idle, who is refusing to allow the BBC to release it on DVD because it reminds him of 'a bad time in his life'... | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.158.238.131 |
That strikes me as being 'LA precious'. What about the people who would like to see it? the other performers, writers who may benefit? The audience who would like to see it again? gcw | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.151.96.144 |
Unfortunately, none of them control the rights... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Damn! On that basis I must withdraw The Face That Must Die and Incarnate! I should admit that we'll be off to see Cleese in Liverpool, hoping for the best. On Fawlty Towers, I think he said he had to struggle back into the character for the second series after he'd been into psychology. (I should say I love both series and often watch them.) Still, there certainly was Life of Brian as well. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
I can certainly see how therapeutic psychology - becoming reflexively aware of one's neuroses; running them instead of them running you - can compromise a comedian, particularly one (like Cleese) who trades on such neurosis. Isn't this also said of Billy Connelly? (Not being a follower of his career, I can't give my view.) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
Cleese and Skinner conclude, on the basis of a study of creative types, that therapy has no impact on creativity - indeed, it makes many more creative. But . . . I have an intuitive feeling that when we're talking about very high achievements in creativity - the extradinary manic-ness of FT, for instance - becoming aware of its roots may become inhibiting. Cleese reports that he was astonished by how many traits Basil shared with clinical descriptions of neurotic types (which he chanced upon after series 1). He created him intuitively. And maybe by series two he had enough understanding of the character not to let such 'technical' knowledge interfere with this essential pre-reflective process. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
What's interesting here is how many creative types intuitively shy away from trying to understand too well the source of their work. There must be something in that intuitive reticence. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.148.43 |
Knowing doesn't help. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
I'm talking about hindering. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.151.96.144 |
It was also broadcast in the mid-1970s, before many people had video recorders, so no one really knows if a complete set of tapes exist, given that that was the height of the BBC-junking-videotapes frenzy. I've managed to get a couple of DVDs of complete episodes, and Youtube has a lot of the individual sketches collected (here's one that features my father-in-law pretty heavily: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpyvLlKAkBU&p=CFD1B6045A5A8416&index=49 along with lots of the other bits and pieces) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.148.43 |
In Clockwise (?), Cleese utters the most poignant (though by neans amusing) of lines: "It's not the despair that torments me. I can live with the despair. It's the hope." I can forgive him a lot for that line. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.151.96.144 |
That line... of Michael Frayn's. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I heard a variation of that line a long time before Clockwise (terrible film, btw). "It's the hope that kills you." Can't remember the source, but it's been adapted many times over the years. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 89.240.68.15 |
Oooh, Clockwise is his best film. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.203.223 |
Nat - which is your father-in-law? Not the splendid Mr David Battley? | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.203.223 |
Oooh, Clockwise is his best film. That doesn't say much for the rest. Didn't like that at all, and Wanda was only slightly better. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.203.223 |
"Once we had a donkey, we kept it in the yard One day in the winter it was snowin' hard Mother said the donkey must be cold in the yard Bring him in the kitchen and let him have a warm In came the donkey, 'n' bit me father's ear Took it for a cabbage leaf and broke the chandelier Out went the gas And then it came alight again Poor father's head The donkey took a bite again Mother took a knife and fork t'stick it in the ass Stuck it in me father's head and out went the gas Ain't you mad you can't get at it? Mother's sewn me drawers up." | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.231.118 |
Knowing does help in the sense that you are ultimately able to give whatever's behind the neurosis its proper place. The past cannot be undone, but one can learn how to cope with it; if, however, one's creativity is engendered by that particular neurosis, in so doing creativity itself may be given its proper place and hence become redundant. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.151.96.144 |
Yes, Mick, Mr David Battley, indeed. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.255 |
Thank god. I thought I was alone in thinking A Fish Called Wanda consistently unfunny.... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Wow! I didn't expect my John Cleese post to cause as much excitement as this when I posted it last night!  Yes, it sounds like his latest ex-wife has really taken him to the cleaners. I remember seeing him say about it something along the lines of "at least I'll know the next one won't be after me for my money". I thought "Clockwise" was very funny. ".. Wanda" I couldn't get into at all, and I didn't even bother with "Fierce Creatures". "Fawlty Towers" was, of course, a classic. It's a good thing they stopped after 12 episodes though - if it had run on and on it would have got stale. But I think the pinnacle of all their careers was "Python" (including the films, especially "Life of Brian") - apart from maybe Palin who's gone on to make probably an even bigger name for himself in the travelogue. And he is absolutely delightful in person.  Pity about Rutland Weekend TV - I'd love to see that on DVD. From the on-stage interviews I've seen with Palin and Jones, I get the impression that Eric Idle is a bit of a strange one. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh, and who could forget "Ripping Yarns"? Loved it. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.183.203.223 |
I have the DVD set of Ripping Yarns - wonderful programme - "Eight bloody one"! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Ripping Yarns - now there's a bloody good programme. I thought Wanda was pretty good, myself. Made me laugh, anyway. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.46.103 |
Ripping Yarns is wonderful. That footie episode made me laugh out loud. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
I really liked Wanda. Also liked Creatures. Love all the Python stuff. But Clockwise is pants. |