John Cleese unleashes ‘Python’ on receptive NJPAC audience

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — John Cleese is completely engrossed in a heartfelt and thought-provoking discussion lamenting the constantly negative and depressive tone of the current evening news. All the while, a mangled, freshly used tissue is unpleasantly dangling from the side of his cheek. It’s awkward yet undeniably silly. Classic Cleese.

As co-founder of the groundbreaking British comedy troupe Monty Python and former star of the madcap “Fawlty Towers” series, the legendary 77-year-old funnyman may not have invented absurdist humor but he is certainly keeping it alive and well in 2017. A beloved actor, screenwriter, producer, lecturer and author, Cleese brought his “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” tour to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 24. A packed house of thrilled fans was treated to a big-screen matinee of the 1975 comedy-adventure classic, followed by a wonderfully irreverent 75-plus minutes of the comedian onstage and uncensored.

Although probably best known to mainstream American moviegoers for his contributions to the 1988 comedy smash, “A Fish Called Wanda,” Cleese led the enthralled crowd on a laughter-inducing stroll down memory lane that spanned his half-century in the entertainment business. As abruptly as the film “Holy Grail” concludes — and it does end quite abruptly — Cleese was greeted with thunderous applause as he walked on to center stage. And then he promptly walked off, accompanied by a roar of startled laughter. It required no less than two introductions before he finally settled into a comfortable chair to tell his tales and answer questions from the NJPAC audience. In typical Cleese “attack” mode, the very first topic he addressed was what he felt were the glaringly substandard elements of “Holy Grail,” lambasting his fellow Python members for their creative misfires and promising the crowd he would “find a few hours tomorrow to re-edit the whole blasted ending.”

Cleese proceeded to recall in vivid detail just how difficult it was back then making the now-revered comedy epic chronicling the bumbling exploits of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. At that point, their iconic BBC-TV series called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” had barely begun to make a dent in the American market. Cleese had already left the show after its third season due to growing tensions within the group and his own sense of disillusionment with what he felt was increasingly redundant and inferior material.

The budget for “Holy Grail” was a mere $400,000, which meant that inventive cost-cutting measures were necessary to keep the production on track. Explaining the ridiculously brilliant running gag of having King Arthur and his entourage faux-horseback riding (walking) to the sounds of “galloping” coconut noises, Cleese quipped, “We had to use coconuts because we couldn’t afford the horses!” When the film proved to be both an artistic and commercial triumph, Cleese admitted that he and the rest of his Python cronies were initially caught off-guard. “We were all quite astonished by the success of the movie because it had been such a punishing experience while making it.”

Elaborating on the interpersonal dynamics that could occasionally cause rifts within the Python brotherhood, Cleese was forthright in his assessment of their true talents. “We were, first and foremost, six writers. Not actors. We weren’t argumentative and we rarely ad-libbed. We never fought over which one of us was going to play a certain role in our sketches. As writers, we almost always knew instinctively who was perfect for a part.” While sincerely addressing the raging alcoholism that plagued his former writing partner, the late Graham Chapman, Cleese also unloaded a variety of good-natured swipes at his former Python companions. Referring to Eric Idle as “a selfish bastard” and to Michael Palin’s popular travel shows as “utterly boring rubbish showing an obvious lack of imagination,” Cleese drew huge laughs from the delighted audience.

Fellow Englishmen Peter Cooke, Dudley Moore and David Frost were all mentioned as early comedic inspirations. When asked if any American comedy giants influenced him during his formative years, Cleese briskly ran off a long list of notable names: George Burns, Jack Benny, Phil Silvers, Lucille Ball, Amos & Andy, Mort Sahl, Buster Keaton and The Marx Brothers all left measurable impressions on him, but it was wise-cracking vaudeville great W.C. Fields whom he found to be the most fascinating.

Cleese implored the attentive NJPAC crowd to focus on the truly important things in life. To rise above the daily drudgery and perceived hopelessness of present-day living, he dryly reminded them, “You do know you’re all going to die, don’t you?”
When asked about his relatively rapid and easy rise to stardom in the 1970s, Cleese responded, “Looking back at it all now, it was mostly luck. I was a trainee lawyer from Cambridge University. We (Monty Python) were all going to be teachers, doctors or lawyers. But we all had great luck, combined with hard work and persistence.”

Throughout his nearly 80 minutes of stage time, Cleese focused his insightful and biting British wit on random and wide-ranging topics such as the frighteningly diminished attention spans of the Millennial Generation, his early battles with pre-performance anxiety, what it must feel like to be swallowed whole by a boa constrictor, the soulless marketing of recent motion pictures, and the oddly quaint premise of having his mother stuffed and displayed in his home after her passing.

If the previous paragraph reads as if it could be an outline to a lost 1969 episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, just consider the source. But it’s 2017, and thankfully, John Cleese is still a remarkably funny chap.
“And now for something completely different …”

David VanDeventer is a frequent entertainment coverage contributor to Worrall Media and can be reached at [email protected].