John Cleese. So Anyway.
NY: Crown Publishing, 2014
As reviewed by Ted Odenwald
Several generations will remember John Cleese as the hilariously inept and insecure hotel keeper in “Fawlty Towers,” as a number of bizarre characters in numerous scenes in “The Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” and as the King in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” In this autobiography, Cleese presents a detailed history of the key points in his life that led to his successful career in performance and writing.
His sharp wit coloring his narrative throughout, Cleese speaks self-deprecatingly of himself as a youthful “wus”—“a gutless little weed” who discovered that his best self-defense was his ability to make people laugh. He describes himself as a diffident youth, perhaps anticipating the character of Basil Fawlty, who “suppresse[d] his anger and [made] increasingly bad choices, and reveal[ed] his fears.” Though his family had modest means, they enrolled him in the equivalent of a U.S. private school, and eventually in Downing College (pre-law) at Cambridge University. Although he earned his law degree, Cleese found his true vocation at Cambridge through his work with “The Footlight Players.” Located in the center of the university, the players were known for staging witty comic revues. Both performing and writing skits, Cleese received an informal education. He learned that “to get a joke requires… a mental skip, and the tricky part of constructing one is judging the width of the jump needed for the joke to be ‘got.’ If you spoonfeed an intelligent audience and make the joke too obvious, they won’t find it very funny. But [if] ..the jump is too long, so that the connection is not made, they don’t laugh at all.” He also learned keys to comedy: one receives an education by performing several times and experimenting; one learns timing, controlling the nerves, and connecting individual sections to the piece as a whole.
Cleese’s success with the Footlight players led to his joining their travelling company, “The Cambridge Circus.” Fellow Briton David Frost used some of Cleese’s early material for his own shows, thus beginning a professional relationship that lasted for decades. Cleese’s long writing partnership with Graham Chapman began in the Circus, continuing as both of them collaborated on scripts with such comedic greats as Marty Feldman and Peter Sellers.
Cleese learned several lessons as his writing and performing career developed. He honed his skills in timing by observing comedian Ronnie Corbett, who “played with his timing, sometimes taking risks by extending pauses;… by waiting…he would build the tension just before he triggered his line.” Cleese believes that “The more anxious you feel [about performing] the less creative you are. Your mind ceases to play and be expansive. Fear causes your thinking to contract, to play safe, and this forces you into stereotypical thinking. And in comedy you must have innovation.” His forte was always the sketch; when he attempted to link the short scenes in a movie project, the results were less-than-satisfactory. “…Confident that from a score of decent, three-minute sketches we could construct a hundred-minute film—[he and Chapman] were displaying an optimism similar to that of two youths who, having put up a garden shed, now decide to build a cathedral.”
Unfortunately, there is not a great deal of information in this book about Cleese’s involvement in the creation and development of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the Monty Python full-length films. He claims that he and Chapman “stumbled in the show with Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and Terry Gilliam. None of these men were primarily performers. They were writers “who didn’t battle over parts.” Attesting to their lasting popularity, the Flying Circus reunion in 2013 sold out the London O2 for ten consecutive nights (audiences of 16,000).
A sequel to this autobiography would definitely be welcome, especially if it were to contain more Monty Python and “Fawlty Towers” details.
Ted Odenwald and his wife, Shirley have lived in Oakland for 45 years. He taught HS English at Glen Rock High School for all of those years plus one more. Now he is enjoying time spent with his family, singing in the North Jersey Chorus and quenching his wanderlust. Ted is also the Worship Leader at the Ramapo Valley Baptist Church in Oakland.