John Cleese joins GB News, presenting show on cancel culture

Monday 10th October 2022, 10:34am by Jay Richardson

John Cleese is joining GB News, presenting a show on cancel culture, wokeness and politics with Andrew Doyle
"People say it's a right-wing channel; it's a free speech channel," Cleese told Radio 4's Today programme
The Monty Python star had previously expressed concern about Russian influence upon the station

John Cleese is to present a new show on GB News next year with stand-up and existing GB News presenter and producer Andrew Doyle, discussing cancel culture, wokeness and politics.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme this morning, the Monty Python star admitted he hadn't heard of the channel when he was approached.

"I don't know much about modern television because I'd pretty much given up on it - I mean English television," he told presenter Amol Rajan. "Then I met one or two of the people concerned and I had a dinner with them and liked them very much. People say it's a right-wing channel; it's a free speech channel."

Cleese, who described himself as an "old-fashioned liberal", continued: "The nice thing about talking to the GB News audience is that they may not be used to hearing the sort of things I'll be saying...

"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!' I wouldn't get five minutes into the first show before I'd been cancelled or censored."

As recently as 28th August, Cleese tweeted: "GB News is sometimes referred to, rather wittily, as 'KGB News' To what extent is GB News influenced by Russian interests?"

Asked if he'd received a satisfactory answer about his concerns from the channel, Cleese replied that; "I've been talking a lot about it with Andrew Doyle, and one of the original founders seems to have made some money in Russia but it's no more than that ... I'm satisfied at the moment.

"But the whole point is, is it free speech or not? And after I start the show, we will find out."

GB News shareholder Legatum, a Dubai-based investment group, is chaired by Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand-born tycoon who was once a major shareholder in the Russian state energy firm Gazprom.

In 2018, he was accused by a group of cross-party MPs of "working for Russian intelligence services".

Speaking to The Guardian that same year, Chandler said: "No, I'm not a Russian spy. I don't speak Russian. I don't know anybody in the Russian state thing."

Cleese is also currently making a series about cancellation culture for Channel 4, John Cleese: Cancel Me.

Earlier this year, the 82-year-old described cancel culture as a "tragedy", telling attendees at the FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas, where he was keynote speaker, that comedians didn't have the freedom to be funny anymore and that comedy films were now "aimed at young men because they're the ones who go to the cinema on Friday night".

In November, Cleese cancelled his own appearance at Cambridge University after a visiting speaker was banned for making a Hitler impression, saying that he was "blacklisting myself before someone else does" and urging organisers to "find a venue where woke rules do not apply".

John Cleese - So, Anyway...

Candid and brilliantly funny, this is the story of how a tall, shy youth from Weston-super-Mare went on to become a self-confessed legend. En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking 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 next to 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 comedy star.

First released: Thursday 9th October 2014

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Publisher: Random House
Pages: 400
Catalogue: 1847946968

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