John Cleese

John Cleese hits out at British TV

John Cleese has issued a damning indictment of modern British television, which he said was once the best in the world but is now so bad he cannot bear to watch it.

John Cleese turned down £200k to go on I'm A Celeb

John Cleese has revealed he turned down £200,000 to go on reality TV show I'm a Celebrity.

Video: John Cleese UK tour is a show 'for fans'

The actor and comedian, John Cleese, is to embark on his first UK tour since he was a member of the Monty Python team in the 1970s.

Dubbed the "alimony" tour, it will start in Cambridge in early May before visiting 10 other cities.

The 71-year-old recently divorced his third wife, and is having to pay her more than £12 million as a settlement.

The tour will go to Liverpool and Salford and BBC North-West Tonight presenter, Gordon Burns, spoke to the comedian about what fans could expect from the show.

Comedy for the year ahead

From relative newcomers such as Andi Osho to old-timers such as John Cleese.

John Cleese: girlfriend is first real love since Connie

He has been married three times and is said to be considering tying the knot once more. And now actor John Cleese has revealed how - unlike his second and third marriages - he had an instant connection with latest girlfriend Jennifer Wade reminiscent of that with first wife Connie Booth.

John Cleese says he always loved the Germans

As the xenophobic hotelier Basil Fawlty, John Cleese famously told his staff "Don't mention the war" before goose-stepping in front of his German guests with an arm raised in a Nazi salute. But more than 30 years on Cleese seems finally willing to follow his character's advice and even go further by seeking a rapprochement with the nation he once so ruthlessly lampooned.

Comic radicalism was the theme of Roy Smiles' Pythonesque, which swung between melancholy and hyperactivity in its homage to Monty Python. His focus was Graham Chapman (Chris Polick), whose Lady Gaga-style willingness to experiment with costume ("Does my dress go with the pipe?" he once asked) was a cover for his struggle with shyness, alcoholism and the pressures of co-writing the cult seventies TV comedy. His writing partner John Cleese (Mark Oosterveen sounding very like the beanpole performer) emitted tenderness and exasperation. The mix of scenes of realism with those in the satire-meets-panto style of the Pythons worked very well.

You're on a hiding to nothing dramatising the Monty Python story: try as you might, you're never going to be as funny as your subject. Undeterred, Roy Smiles undertook the challenge in Pythonesque, which centred on Graham Chapman's battle with booze and his early death from cancer, told in the style of those overarching comedy gods.

Written for last year's Edinburgh Festival, it probably worked better on stage, and the tone of over-egged jocularity grated somewhat. Devices such as having Eric Idle, in full "Wink-wink nudge-nudge" mode, audition Chapman and John Cleese for the Footlights were simply irritating.

For all the pastiches, even the ones that worked, it was Chapman's sombre closing speech that was truly memorable: "I was proud to be gay, proud to conquer my alcoholism, proud to be a Python, proud to write with John Cleese, and proud to play the lead in two of the funniest movies of all time. I enjoyed a full life and I was loved by many. What more can a man ask?"

Real-life Sybil Fawlty dies aged 95

Beatrice Sinclair ran Torquay hotel used by John Cleese as inspiration for classic sitcom Fawlty Towers.

John Cleese on move to 'beautiful' Georgian Bath

Monty Python funnyman John Cleese says he has fallen "in love" with his new home in Bath.

The actor and comedian has moved to the Georgian city after spending the past decade in America.

And Cleese, who was born in Weston-super-Mare and went to Bristol's Clifton College, says many people he knows are moving West.