Is the Fog Funny John Cleese
Humor is one of those things that's hard to explain – you either find something funny or you don't. In his autobiography, John Cleese of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" fame addresses why humor is an important attribute.
"A good sense of humour is the sign of a healthy perspective," the British comic actor wrote in "So, Anyway…," his 2014 book. "Which is why people who are uncomfortable around humour are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive)."
He's likely to discuss that theme Thursday, when he takes part in a question-and-answer session at a screening of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" at the Flynn Center in Burlington.
More:Marsalis, Cleese, 'Kinky Boots' among Flynn Center's 2017-18 highlights announced Tuesday
"That's a very good topic of discussion with our audience," Cleese told the Burlington Free Press in a phone conversation this month from his home in England. "People don't seem to understand that all humor, perhaps except for puns, is because people aren't handling things well."
He cited the character he played after "Monty Python's Flying Circus" ended its television run in the 1970s – Basil Fawlty, the perpetually flustered and self-centered proprietor of a haphazard inn who made things worse the more he tried to fix them. "Fawlty Towers" highlighted Cleese's biting humor that veers toward mean before pulling back toward a (mostly) good-natured approach.
"That's what's funny is that lack of flexibility," Cleese said. "If you laugh at someone, the basic thought is, 'They can be doing better than that.'"
One thing that Cleese finds funny – sort of – is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," his comedy troupe's classic 1975 film about King Arthur and his band of knights seeking the ultimate Christian relic.
"I think the first 50 minutes is quite good," Cleese said. The opening half of the film includes famous Python scenes such as a battle with an increasingly limbless Black Knight in serious denial ("It's just a flesh wound!"), a group of taunting Frenchmen ("Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!") and a less-than-frightening encounter with The Knights Who Say "Ni." ("You must return here with a shrubbery or else you will never pass through this wood alive… One that looks nice – and not too expensive.")
What about the rest of the movie? "I don't think it's quite so good after that," Cleese said. The ending, according to Cleese, bogs down in a flurry of bombastic music and attempts at a spectacular ending that, in classic Python fashion, cuts off abruptly. "I don't like that so much."
He has better things to say about "Spamalot," the Tony Award-winning musical based on "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" that his Python pal Eric Idle brought to Broadway. "Spamalot" gives a Pythonesque wink and a nod to the clichés of lavish musicals, allowing the show to tie up the plot's loose ends in typical (if ironic) Broadway style.
"I thought he did a very good job of it," Cleese said of Idle while also praising the direction of Mike Nichols. "We were all rather dubious. None of us were terribly interested in being involved – 'How is he going to make that work?' He did a great job."
Cleese, an Oscar nominee for best screenplay for the 1988 film "A Fish Called Wanda," is dismayed at what he sees as a decline in the past decade or so of people's senses of humor.
Cleese, 77, said he's been warned not to perform at certain universities out of fear that audiences will take his humor too personally. He mentioned the late British actor Charles Laughton, who was said to arrive at parties waiting to be offended.
"When you have an audience waiting to be offended," Cleese said, "it's not very fun."
If you go
WHAT: John Cleese presents "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
WHERE: Flynn Center, Burlington
TICKETS: Sold out, though seats "may open up closer to the performance date," according to the Flynn Center's website. 863-5966, www.flynntix.org.
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.
Source: https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/entertainment/2017/09/19/john-cleese-talks-art-humor-he-prepares-show-monty-python-and-holy-grail/682055001/
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