The Guardian newspaper recently reported that comedian John Cleese has signed up to become a presenter on the rightwing television channel GB News.
“There’s a massive amount of important information that gets censored, both in TV and in the press,” Cleese explained. “In my new show, I’ll be talking about a lot of it. You should be prepared to be shocked.” He added that he was told by people from GB News that “People say it’s the rightwing channel — it’s a free speech channel.”
Cleese went on to say that he would not be offered such a show by the BBC, the institution that commissioned and broadcast both Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers, the comedy classics with which the 82-year-old Cleese is most associated.
“The BBC have not come to me and said: ‘Would you like to have some one-hour shows?’ And if they did, I would say: ‘Not on your nelly!’ Because I wouldn’t get five minutes into the first show before I’d been cancelled or censored.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, starting with the fact that Cleese made these comments about being cancelled by the BBC while he was, quite literally, being interviewed on-air by BBC Radio and thus very much not cancelled by the Beeb. As part of the Python troupe, or as the sharp-tongued Basil Fawlty, Cleese would have had no hesitation in skewering this sort of contradictory, clueless nonsense in his younger days, so it’s a bit sad to see him indulging in it now.
Then there’s his statement about the BBC not offering him any shows, as if the Beeb owes him something. I hate to be the one to break this to Cleese, but he comes across as someone who thinks he’s entitled to something by virtue of being who he is, completely oblivious to the fact that the world has moved on and there are other voices — many of them people who have traditionally not been able to get much of a foothold at the BBC —worthy of being heard.
And perhaps the BBC took a look and listen to Cleese in recent years and decided he simply didn’t have anything to say that they felt the majority of their viewers wanted to hear. I say this with considerable sadness, as I adore the Monty Python troupe and the work Cleese did with them. As for Basil Fawlty: well, the tempermental Torquay hotelier is one of the great comic creations of all time, and an unofficial patron saint to anyone who has quietly suffered the indignities of working in a hotel and dealing with guests ranging from the exasperating to the downright weird.
While Cleese in his heyday could probably have had offers galore from the BBC, that heyday was half-a-century ago. The BBC has, in the past, had a tendency to keep on offering employment to entertainers who have reached the status of National Treasure™, regardless of whether or not they are still relevant or interesting or, well, entertaining, banking on their familiarity and proven track record with audiences (see Jimmy Savile for a prime example, although on second thought don’t, as his story is far too depressing).
Here in Canada we saw this with the comedy duo Wayne and Shuster, who in their prime were truly funny men. Did they still deserve to be getting prime time specials on CBC-TV into the 1980s, nearly 50 years after they started out on CBC radio, and many years after critics were calling them irrelevant and out-of-date? It’s not for me to say, but there were probably a lot of up-and-coming young Canadian comedians who could have done with some of the airtime taken up by Johnny and Frank.
Cleese said that the BBC’s job is to produce “the best possible programmes”. Agreed. Apparently the Beeb has decided John Cleese is not that best possible programming; whether rightly or wrongly, only time will tell. Cleese has an opportunity to prove them wrong, after he knocks that chip of entitlement off his shoulder.
editorial@accjournal.ca
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