John Cleese's huge comedic influence has stretched across generations; his sharp irreverent eye and the unique brand of physical comedy he perfected with Monty Python, on Fawlty Towers, and beyond now seem written into comedy's DNA. In this rollicking memoir, So, Anyway..., Cleese takes readers on a Grand Tour of his ascent in the entertainment world, from his humble beginnings in a sleepy English town and his early comedic days at Cambridge University (with future Python partner Graham Chapman), to the founding of the landmark comedy troupe that would propel him to worldwide renown. Cleese was just days away from graduating Cambridge and setting off on a law career when he was visited by two BBC executives, who offered him a job writing comedy for radio. That fateful moment--and a near-simultaneous offer to take his university humour revue to London's famed West End--propelled him down a different path, cutting his teeth writing for stars like David Frost and Peter Sellers, and eventually joining the five other Pythons to pioneer a new kind of comedy that prized invention, silliness, and absurdity. Along the way, he found his first true love with the actress Connie Booth and transformed himself from a reluctant performer to a world-class actor and back again. Twisting and turning through surprising stories and hilarious digressions--with some brief pauses along the way that comprise a fascinating primer on what's funny and why--this story of a young man's journey to the pinnacle of comedy is a masterly performance by a master performer.
And now for something completely different. Professor at Large features beloved English comedian and actor John Cleese in the role of Ivy League professor at Cornell University. His almost twenty years as professor-at-large has led to many talks, essays, and lectures on campus. This collection of the very best moments from Cleese under his mortarboard provides a unique view of his endless pursuit of intellectual discovery across a range of topics. Since 1999, Cleese has provided Cornell students and local citizens with his ideas on everything from scriptwriting to psychology, religion to hotel management, and wine to medicine. His incredibly popular events and classes—including talks, workshops, and an analysis of A Fish Called Wanda and The Life of Brian—draw hundreds of people. He has given a sermon at Sage Chapel, narrated Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Cornell Chamber Orchestra, conducted a class on script writing, and lectured on psychology and human development. Each time Cleese has visited the campus in Ithaca, NY, he held a public presentation, attended and or lectured in classes, and met privately with researchers. From the archives of these visits, Professor at Large includes an interview with screenwriter William Goldman, a lecture about creativity entitled, "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind," talks about Professor at Large and The Life of Brian, a discussion of facial recognition, and Cleese's musings on group dynamics with business students and faculty. Professor at Large provides a window into the workings of John Cleese's scholarly mind, showcasing the wit and intelligence that have driven his career as a comedian, while demonstrating his knack of pinpointing the essence of humans and human problems. His genius on the screen has long been lauded; now his academic chops get their moment in the spotlight, too.
The legendary comedian, actor, and writer of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda fame shares his key ideas about creativity: that it’s a learnable, improvable skill. “Many people have written about creativity, but although they were very, very clever, they weren't actually creative. I like to think I'm writing about it from the inside.”—John Cleese You might think that creativity is some mysterious, rare gift—one that only a few possess. But you’d be wrong. As John Cleese shows in this short, practical, and often amusing guide, creativity is a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, Cleese shares his insights into the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. What do you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind? When do you know that you’ve come up with an idea that might be worth pursuing? What should you do if you think you’ve hit a brick wall? We can all be more creative. John Cleese shows us how.
What makes people tick? What about families, organizations such as schools and businesses, or societies? By understanding them, can we make them tick better? Where does religion fit in? In this entertaining book, England's odd couple--psychiatrist-scholar Robin Skynner and comic John Cleese--answer these provocative questions and others, as they embark on a fascinating, mind-stretching search for what really matters in life. Cartoons throughout. Media publicity.
First published Methuen, 1993. Guides people through their everyday lives and help them retain their individuality while co-operating in joint endeavours. It also explores the nature of competition and sportsmanship, of humour in relation to health, and of
What did Basil Fawlty fail to avoid mentioning? Why did Sybil keep snagging her cardies? Where was Polly on the night of the great wedding anniversary disaster? And what is the Spanish word for "donkey"? The answer to all these questions can be found in this, the complete and unexpurgated scripts of Fawlty Towers--the most celebrated "Brit-com" of all time, and the show was voted the top UK television series ever by the British Film Institute. The snobbish, manic Basil . . . his over-coiffeured, domineering wife Sybil . . . the hopeless but ever-hopeful waiter Manuel . . . the calm and capable Polly . . . and of course the steady stream of abused guests--all live again in the pages of The Complete Fawlty Towers. Gahan Wilson in the New York Times has called John Cleese "arguably one of the funniest people now living." And as one British periodical (Literary Review) put it, the book is "superbly well written. If you're on a bus and can't see Basil Fawlty thrashing his car with a large branch, it is some compensation to read it happening." Or as one anonymous fan put it online: "Yes, it's all here, all the comedy, the frustration, the dead body, even the rat.
A candid and brilliantly funny memoir... ...of how a tall, shy youth from Weston-super-Mare went on to become a self-confessed comedy legend. En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-wracking first public appearance at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python. Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.
Get ready for Superman as you've never seen him before, in an uproarious new graphic novel from Monty Python and Fawity Towers legend John Cleese and The First 28 Years of Monty Python scribe Kim 'Howard' Johnson! In this hilarious twist on a familar tale, the infant Superman's rocket ship crash lands in an English town even smaller than Smallville. Adopted by the kindly Clarks, young Colin is taught to hide his powers, as nobody likes to stand out in a crowd. But when a grown-up Colin - now a mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Smear - uses his powers publicly, the question on everyone's lips is: what will the neighbours think?
(Applause Books). Complete screenplay from this outrageous comedy. " Wanda defies gravity, in both senses of the word, and redefines a great comic tradition." Time "The meanest, most consistently hysterical film in ages ... the writing is sharply pointed and delightfully irreverent." Gannett Newspapers
10 of several other brilliant things you'll never know about Spud The Movie unless you read this book: 1. That John van de Ruit has a small cameo in the movie, for which he had to cultivate an authentic '90s look; 2. What unusual skill John Cleese and his chaperon on the movie set had in common; 3. Whose hair and eyebrows had to be dyed daily for his role as one of the Crazy Eight; 4. That it took eight days to shoot the nightswimming sequences and only three hours to shoot the actual swimming in the dam; 5. How director Donovan Marsh earned the nickname 'Stonewall'; 6. Why the authors of this book could be considered magnets for disasters of huge proportions, natural and otherwise; 7. How Troye Sivan fell victim to adolescence and nearly scuppered the movie; 8. Why Sir Tim Rice of Lion King fame was spotted lurking in the Midlands during the shoot; 9. That unless his shoes are in view, John Cleese performs most of his scenes in evening slippers; 10. What Hugh Grant might have said upon receiving Spud the screenplay. Author of the bestselling Spud series of books, John van de Ruit and movie producer Ross Garland offer a real insider's view into the journey that began with a book about a young boy struggling for acceptance at boarding school and ended with bringing the Crazy Eight and their legendary exploits explosively to life on the big screen. From raising the money to finding the stars, and shooting on set at the school where the dream began, this is an invaluable souvenir for existing and new Spud fans.
This is the definitive, the official, the most lavish, the completely-different-to-anything-done-before Pythons' autobiography, reissued to coincide with the eagerly-anticipated live shows. Over forty years ago, a group of five Englishmen - and one wayward American - rewrote the rules of comedy. MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, an unheralded, previously unseen half-hour show of sketches, hilarities, inanities and animations, first appeared on the BBC late one night in 1969. Its impact has been felt on the world ever since. From its humble beginnings, it blossomed into the most influential movement in modern comedy. THE PYTHONS' AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY THE PYTHONS is a unique look at arguably the most important comic team of the modern age, with 64 pages of photographs, many culled from the team's own personal collections, many more seen for the first time. This is the definitive word on all things Pythonesque.
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