Saw John Cleese last night

[BearPear]

We went to see his Alimony tour at Leeds Grand last night and I have to say that it was a rip off. He did it all from a script (which you could see running at the side of the stage on auto-cue, very distracting). There was no ad-lib, no interaction with the audience, nothing. If he had done 10 minutes question & answers and the end that might have redeemed it, but it was dull, dull, dull.

I realise that he isn't a stand-up comedian in that sense, but the whole thing was soulless. He showed some old footage which got more laughs than he did, especially the Monty Python bits, but not enough to save the night in my opinion.

If you have tickets, be prepared for it not to live up to expectations.

On a more positive note, we got tickets to see The Waterboys and Hothouse Flowers at Kirkstall Abbey next Saturday - bring on the Celtic musical extravaganza!

 

[Dayvo]

He is not, IMO, a funny man!

He is funny when he plays a character, in the way that Robin Williams is, but like RW, he is not a funny man when being himself, as for example, Michael Palin or Billy Connolly.

 

[BearPear]

I think you're right Dayvo, the footage was funny because they were characters, in real life he seemed a bit sad really.

 

[Crackle]

There was a review in the Guardian which summed up my thoughts when I read about his tour and it pretty much confirmed what you've posted. Certain people seem to become caricatures of themselves and Cleese is one of them.

 

[Archie_tect]

He was on the radio promoting his show and when asked why he was touring he said he needed the money... so he's clearly putting in minimum effort for maximum gain. Poor old thing, he must be hard-up and down to his last £5m. I could send him the price of a tin of soup to keep him going... but I don't think I'll bother.

 

[TVC]

I thought about getting tickets, glad I didn't, the critics came out with exactly the same opinion as you PearBear.

 

[smokeysmoo]

He was on the radio promoting his show and when asked why he was touring he said he needed the money

The clues in the title, (Alimony Tour). Don't forget he has to find almost £80k a month for his ex missus, from the Telegraph, "John Cleese was ordered to pay his estranged wife £77,500 a month in maintenance"

Poor thing, he must have tremendous balance though, riding the crest of a wave for as long as he has

 

[Archie_tect]

The clues in the title, (Alimony Tour).

Yes, not exactly subtle is it? ... perhaps he's always been bitter and twisted.

 

[XmisterIS]

The reviews here make me want to arrange the words "horse", "a", "flogging" and "dead" to form a well-known phrase ...

 

[cookiemonster]

Michael Palin was always much funnier than Cleese IMO

 

[brockers]

Cleese lost any vestiges of natural humour when he started analysing comedy, becoming introspective and getting into the whole psychotherapy shebang. Marrying a psychotherapist wasn't going to improve matters either.

I'm not dissing analytical-based psychotherapy by any means. But it can remove your coping strategies (making light of the absurd aka humour being one) on its way to making you less insecure.

 

[PaulB]

He left Monty Python and subsequently decided not to do any more Fawlty Towers and appeared in bit parts (for good money) on a lot of comedy shows (Les Dawson's was one, I remember) and justified all this by saying it was much easier, required no writing work or originality from him, he'd turn up, say a few lines, get paid, go home - result!

 

[Fnaar]

Didn't he once do a load of business training videos too? Might be wrong there...

 

[Tim Bennet.]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWYnVt-umSA

 

[PaulB]

Didn't he once do a load of business training videos too? Might be wrong there...

Well remembered. We were 'entertained' by them at one stage. He brought Harry Enfield in to do some with him as well at one time. They had mobile phones as big as a breeze block to indicate how 'modern' and 'hip' they were at the time.