Monty Python comedian John Cleese has a diabolical plan for his own funeral: ‘I’ll tell you what I really think of them in a video’

British comedian John Cleese will perform in Finland in September 2022 to a packed house. At 81, the tall man known for Monty Python and general mischief is still going strong.

John Cleese in a funny walking pose on the stage of the Last Chance to See Me Before I Die comedy tour in Hamburg on May 26, 2018. — John Cleese criticises the modern habit of being offended on behalf of others. “Freedom of speech cannot be restricted because there are a few assholes in the world” (Photo from May 2018, Hamburg)

Charles will make a good king for Cleese. The crown prince’s interest in architecture and environmental protection attracted strong criticism at the time, but Cleese thought he was on the right side.

Charles’ private life was certainly not private. That seems to make Cleese feel pathetic.

Never mind the monarchy, as long as we get a proper government

– I have yet to meet an adult who believes that he is any better than Boris.

“More length for Putin to bring peace to Ukraine”

The comedian touring Europe also evaluates the neighboring heads of state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in an undershirt on horseback in Siberia. — Small men launch big operations to look taller. John Cleese reckons that thousands of lives would have been spared in Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin had gotten more height from somewhere.

However, Cleese fears that the war in Ukraine will continue for a long time.

– However, the West must win this battle.

President Zelenskyi is sharp – as comedians usually are

– There’s almost a drop in the lens. He’s been incredible.

To ease his war anxiety, Cleese reflects on how a comedian can’t do without sharp hooks. In addition to Zelensky, Cleese mentions American talk show hosts.

– What else could be said about him. Trump is the most shameful creature in the grip of power of the so-called western democracy ever. Most amazing is the view of evangelical circles that he is brilliant. Even though every single opposite of Christ’s teaching is personified in him.

Last chance to see me before I die – again

Cleese last visited Finland in 2018. After the corona break, the tour continues. The name has just narrowed down to Last chance to see me before I die – again.

The material has had time to change.

John Cleese on the tour stage in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall on May 28, 2018. On the background screen is a tour advertisement twice. — John Cleese appreciates the public who participate. The gigs in northern Sweden got in the way of work. “They did give a standing ovation at the end, but it would be nicer to be at work if someone was laughing.” (Photo from May 2018 in Cologne)

– I can’t remember what I talked about last time. There is hardly much of the same stuff as four years ago.

At the end of the first half of the show, Cleese addresses questions from the audience.

– It’s funny because you never know what someone will ask. Genuine connection with the audience is the best.

In addition to the basic jokes, Cleese promises to complain about the hotels where he has to stay. For a large part of the show, he reflects on the essence of humor, when he has experience.

Cleese and partners discovered the power of the group in Monty Python

From 1969 to 1974, Monty Python’s Flying Circus provided laughs on television with its absurd humor.

The staff of Monty Python's Flying Circus in a promotional image on a blue background. That is, the legends of British humor Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese with a tall chef's hat on his head, Terry Jones and the American animation master Terry Gilliam are laughing with their mouths open. — British humour was redefined in the late 1960s when the Monty Python group (v-o Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Jones and Yank Terry Gilliam) summoned up their courage and threw the rules in the bin.

The BBC’s risk-taking paid off: the five humorists who went to elite schools, strengthened by a Yankee animator, turned the British humor of the time – already quite high quality – into a completely new position.

John Cleese as a Hungarian tries to converse with Terry Jones, who plays a tobacconist, using a dictionary gone wrong in episode 25 of Monty Python's Flying Circus in 1970. — “My hovercraft is full of eels!” A conversation in a tobacconist’s shop with the help of a Hungarian-English dictionary gone slightly wrong is one of Monty Python’s classic flying circus sketches. For John Cleese, however, another shop assistant wins the day: an empty shopkeeper with an empty cheese shop, with whom a hungry customer babbles, is Cleese’s favourite pastime.

– We got to play by our own rules. Or more precisely: there were no rules. We were brave in Poruka.

The division of labor was clear. Cleese toiled, Chapman, a lazy man, not so much.

Comedian-actor Graham Chapman in wrestling trunks wrestles with himself in Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series — Graham Chapman, who plays a wrestler trying to break his own neck, was John Cleese’s partner in Monty Python. Chapman was, according to Cleese, a lazy man, but he never failed to chase a laugh.

– I was shoveling in the engine room. Graham sat and stared into nothingness. But every now and then he would drop a really original comment or idea that took the sketch in a really funny direction. And if Graham laughed, it was certain the audience would too.

The hotelier from hell had a living example

Cleese had left the Pythons because he felt the group had begun to repeat itself. The BBC’s head of entertainment asked what next. Cleese announced that he would like to do something together with his wife.

The couple came up with the topic in twenty minutes.

Comedian, screenwriter and actor John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in the series Pitkän Juss's Inn next to Connie Booth, who played Polly, another screenwriter and Cleese's wife at the time. — Basil Fawlty, host of the Long John Inn, and his maid Polly. In real life, John Cleese and Connie Booth were a married couple who co-wrote Fawlty Towers. With only 12 episodes (six in 1975 and another six in 1979), the series has been repeatedly voted the world’s best situation comedy.

In May 1970, the Monty Python group was filming TV sketches in the south of England. The BBC had booked the group a four-star hotel in Torquay.

So Basil Fawlty had a genuine and very outrageous role model. That’s probably one of the reasons why the seamless interplay between the characters of the madhouse-like hotel is still considered one of the best comedy series in the world.

Comedian-actor John Cleese as Basil Fawlty talks on the phone at the hotel reception desk. — Basil Fawlty’s character was modelled on Donald Sinclair, who ran the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay on the south coast of England and whose incredibly outrageous behaviour impressed John Clay.

Cleese absorbed the basic structure of humour from silent films and radio hijinks

According to Cleese, his sense of humor is based on the basic structure of film humor.

The 81-year-old steel guard doesn’t come up with any special secret to getting by.

As long as Cleese wakes up in the morning, he goes to the jobs marked in the calendar.

– Fortunately, most jobs these days are interesting.

However, no one’s career lasts forever. Funerals will still be fun. There will be video greetings of the deceased for the mourners.

– I settle scores with a few guys at church. I’ll tell you in the video what I really think about them, Cleese insists.

Cleese hopes the hospice would laugh despite their sadness.

– When a liked or loved person dies, of course you can be sad. But also a little laughter.

Cleese knows what he’s talking about. In December 1989, Cleese gave one of the most moving and funniest eulogies in history to his writing partner, Graham Chapman.

Michael Palin, as a pet store salesman, tells John Cleese that the Norwegian blue parrot Cleese recently bought is not dead, but longs for the fjords. This so-called The parrot sketch is one of the best-known sketches of the Monty Python comedy group. — Even in the parrot forest, you shop in a shop. Michael Palin reassures an upset John Cleese, who thinks the “Norwegian blue parrot” is very dead. According to the shopkeeper, the parrot is just “longing for the fjords”. Cleese began his eulogy to Graham Chapman with a number of deathly expressions in this sketch.

Here are the opening words of the speech, which open to everyone who knows the fate of the Norwegian blue parrot:

Cleese recalls that in Chapman’s blessing chapel, tears and laughter mingled in a strangely fascinating way.

– Someone said that the emotions went right through us. In the end, we all felt really good, which is impossible to explain. But man is a strange creature.