John Cleese

My comedy hero: Michael Redmond on John Cleese

The Glasgow-based Irish stand-up picks the Monty Python legend as his comic icon.

The Four Candles/Fork Handles sketch, ribald puns and lengthy armchair monologues - such was the stuff of all our Saturday nights. This three-part documentary, first aired in 2013, tells the story of the duo, with tonight's opener recalling how they came to work together, having cut their teeth appearing alongside the likes of John Cleese. Contributors include Al Murray, Clive Anderson and the late Ronnie Corbett himself.

The Monty Python's Flying Circus team's first big-screen guffaw is a rerun of some of their famous TV sketches. The anarchic battiness of these early sketches doesn't quite hold up; the later efforts, in which the Pythons harnessed humour into a mock-historical context, were more successful. But it's fun to see Cleese, Palin, Idle and all in the loopy pomp of their youth.

TV review: The Undiscovered Peter Cook, BBC4

It's the kind of scoop every journalist/documentarist dreams of. Getting access to hitherto unseen archives of someone dead and famous. And that is exactly what Victor Lewis-Smith landed when Peter Cook's widow Lin allowed him to rummage through Cook's personal possessions in his Hampstead mews home that hadn't been touched since his death in 1995. The results have been painstakingly cherry picked and put together to produce this fascinating doc on a man who has already had umpteen fascinating docs made about him.

Cleese's Spectator column canned after one article

John Cleese's time as a contributor to the Spectator ended after just one article, such was its low quality, according to a newspaper today.

SNP politicians condemn John Cleese over 'racist' rant

SNP politicians have hit out at John Cleese after he claimed the media in England is run by "half-educated tenement Scots".

Review: Slap Up Feast of Fun

Last night's Slapstick Festival fundraiser was a rare treat for comedy fans, as Bristol packed the hall to enjoy performances from Rory Bremner, Tim Vine, Barry Cryer, Neil Innes and the legendary John Cleese.

John Cleese: Much of success is based on luck

The spiky comedic national treasure tells our reporter why he is returning to small-screen laughtermaking, how he only watches cricket on television these days and that he would not go anywhere near Bake Off.