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John Cleese Joins Madison in the Morning to Preview His Upcoming Show at The Orpheum - Madison · Ask The Experts

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  Thirteen ten wid a Madison in the morning and we are joined this morning by
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  Basil Faulty himself the Black Night mister John Clees, John, how are you
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  doing this morning? Not too bad? We did a show last night.
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  I can't even remember where, but afterwards we got on the bus. That's
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  what throw through the night and I woke up this morning, did an interview
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  A fine as it's a nice way to start by ages fourth birthday and now
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  I have a string of interviews through starting with your show. Well I'm happyness
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  because I've had a nice cup of coffee. It's an absolute honor to talk
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  with you, mister Glees. And let's start out talking. It's a moment
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  that you will remember on your death bed, meaning to her otherwise meaningless life.
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  I love the optimism. Let's talk about of course, you've got the
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  show coming up later this week at the Orpheum here in Madison and evening with
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  the late John Cleese. Love the love the title. Let's talk a little
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  bit about what goes on in the program. Oh well, my daughter comes
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  out. It's a very funny stand up comedian and been doing it forwenty years.
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  She comes out and opens for me. And then I come out and
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  do a few Timato jokes people like them, and then we take a break,
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  and then we have an interview into bowl into mission when we take questions
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  from the audience, which is always fun because you never have no idea what
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  question you're going to get our stings fun. That is amazing. It should
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  be a whole lot of fun. Let's talk. I got to ask you
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  John about obviously, for a lot of folks, myself included, I was
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  I was telling some people just what a huge fan of yours I am,
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  and just all the the you know, the all the different work, whether
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  it's movies, television, having a chance to do chats like you're going to
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  be doing at the Orpheum later this week. For you, I think a
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  lot of times we obviously credit my python and what you were doing with the
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  Flying Circus and as such an inspiration for comedy in modern comedy. What about
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  for you? What were those inspirations? Who were those people, who were
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  those groups? What were those things that you paid attention to that said that
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  is absolutely brilliant and kind of pushed you in the direction of comedy. Well,
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  no, you might be interested in over many of them were American because
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  when I was growing up, the first first stuff I ever saw black and
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  white was Clara Harvey, and then Chaplain and after that Harold Lloyd and Buster
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  Key, and then as I got a little bit older at w C.
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  Fields, and then of course the glorious Marks Brothers so and then the big
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  movie was always then Nanny k Movie in the summer. So an enormous amount
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  of my influence was from American films, and then from television because I used
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  to love Phil Silver's and Sargeant beau Bilco and George. There was so much
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  good company coming to it. The BBC was putting most of it all off
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  screen. Let's talk about you mentioned the BBC, and of course a fantastic
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  program that aired on the BBC, and I hope folks get a chance.
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  I know occasionally it comes to Netflix and the DVDs and other things are available.
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  Only was a broadcast two seasons Faulty Towers, and I started off by
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  mentioning, Basil Faulty and what's your character? What I find interesting is and
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  it's kind of has a lot to do with the time is I feel like,
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  when like the American version of the Office came out and there was there
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  was that time where there was a lot of reflection between the two countries.
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  I thought Faulty Towers would have been perfect for a show that would have would
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  have I think one Americans can appreciate in general. But kind of following that
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  same vein do you get you get question a lot from folks about maybe revitalizing
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  or or finding you know, talking about fault It was such a such a
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  brilliant program. Well have been three have been three attempts to put it onto
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  American television, and they've all been feet sains. And what I noticed is
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  that my demeral feeding Shaan is that very few of the people in charge of
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  anything know what they're doing. And it's certainly true television. I mean,
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  this is some idea of how insane some of the people are in charge.
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  One lot author Rights of Force does And when I met them and they said,
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  oh, we think we know how to do this, and I said,
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  you're going to change anything, because Americans no small family hotels as much
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  as they know the big Shane. So they said, no, we're not
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  really change Well they said, we're making one change. We've written Basil out
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  now this is insane. But they did it, and of course it was
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  a complete far They've all failed. But my daughter and I are now trying
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  to do a different version of it, which I'm merely common denominator in this
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  and we were working on it yesterday that we were trying to make some important
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  decisions that would affect the whole series. So we're working slowly, which is
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  the way I like the work. That's great stuff talking this morning with the
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  great John Clees. Of course, coming to Madison the Orphium. More information
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  available Madison Orphium dot com. That's Madison Orphium dot com. Limited number of
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  tickets for Thursday's night's performance. And I think a lot of people wonder what
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  how do you spend your time when you're not on tour, when you're not
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  writing and working, How do you relax you? What do you do for
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  fun? Mister Lees? Well, unfortunately, I've had a problem with my
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  left foot. I had a bone spur and it's a long time to heal,
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  so I've not been moving around as much as I normally do, but
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  it's no better, thank goodness. I spent a lot of time reading and
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  talking and just nothing. I don't have really any hobbies as such, but
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  I'm trying to a lot of time trying to understand the modern world and finding
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  it almost impossible to do so, do you have that experience? I do
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  have quite quite a bit. There's there's It's interesting when you mentioned that you
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  kind of the modern world, and I mentioned, of course getting the opportunity
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  to perform with your daughter. I've got a son who is very much he's
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  a young man, very much in love of comedy. And I've got to
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  ask you in this modern world, with you know, venues like YouTube and
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  TikTok and those type of things, any advice to younger folks that want to
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  look to look to comedy, look to entertainment. Yes, I always have
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  the same thing. And whether it's performing or writing, the thing is,
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  take one piece of comedy that you love, whether as I say, it's
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  television or whether it's radius, and just get a piece of paper and listen
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  to it once and then try and write it down from memory, and then
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  go back and listen to it again and see what you've missed out while put
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  thing to the wrong order, and then write it out. And that way
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  you learn very very fast about the restructuring and structuring of comedy. And if
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  you're a performer, just find the that you love and watch it until you
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  are bored, because once you're sucked into it, either as a drama or
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  as a piece of humorous writing, you can't see how it's done. Once
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  you get bored with it, you can start looking at its objectively. You
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  can learn some of the skills of the performer. I think sometimes you will
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  make the mistake of you know, they see folks like you perform and how
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  effortless it is, they tend to forget that there's that there's actually a lot
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  of a lot of work, a lot of you know that there was there
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  was a lot of practice that went into to being so you know again making
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  it seem so so flawless, so smooth, so natural. Yeah, the
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  main thing is I mean, I always say the French work for rehearsal is
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  repetiity or repetition, and that's it. The more you get in front of
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  an audience, and the more often you do in the front of an audience,
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  the better you get because each time you learn one new thing, and
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  by at the time result as the affording performances, you're beginning to acquire Some
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  was these technique which had a lot of actors don't have at all. I
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  mean, a lot of very very good straight actors are no good at comedy.
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  One final quote. I know you've got a busy schedule this morning,
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  mister Clees. One final things we talk about about some of the great movies
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  and television shows you've involved in. Is there any particular role or any particular
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  character for you personally that even to this day, that you still just cherish
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  that you had the opportunity to bring to the world. I don't think there's
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  a particular character. No, although some people would say it was bazzile faulty.
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  But I think the thing that I'm most proud of in retrospace is I
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  think that the Life of Brian film the Pythons people made was a very very
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  good film. I think is for one really good film that we made.
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  But I think it's almost a masterpiece and I'm very proud of that. And
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  I'm in the process of adapting it for stage presentation in London next year and
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  I'm really enjoying doing it. It should be a should be a great show.
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  And again we've got the great show coming up as well. A chance
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  to see mister John Clees at the Orphium coming up this Thursday night. Select
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  tickets still available. Head on over to Madison orphium dot com. That's Madison
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  Orphium dot com. Mister Clees, it's been an absolute honor. I don't
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  know if you know this. You've made my day growing up watching Munty Python
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  and all the films and it was thank you so much. You do great
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  work. Thank you sir, you enjoyed this fantastic day and happy birthday.
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  Oh thank you, thank you again. The show coming up this Thursday night
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  at seven thirty. Tickets available Madison orphilm dot com. That's Madison orphilm dot
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  com. More of Madison in the Morning is next here on thirteen ten wib A