No fun with cancel culture, says John Cleese

LONDON • John Cleese does not have much time for political correctness or cancel culture, and as for the state of the world? It is completely hopeless, the former Monty Python star says.

Instead Cleese, 80, is promising "a short selection of Peruvian burial ditties" when he presents a comedic live stream plus Q&A session from London next month.

Why There Is No Hope is described as a part-lecture and part-comedy stand-up live stream. Cleese says it is an experiment in front of the small audience required by social distancing in the coronavirus era.

The British actor is perhaps best known as rude hotel owner Basil Fawlty in the 1970s British TV series Fawlty Towers, and the man from The Ministry Of Silly Walks in the absurdist sketch series Monty Python's Flying Circus in the 1970s.

Cleese last month called the BBC "cowardly and gutless" for temporarily taking down an episode of Fawlty Towers that made fun of Germans and World War II and also featured a character using a racial slur.

Cancel culture "misunderstands the main purposes of life, which is to have fun", he told Reuters, referring to the trend in which people are ostracised because of behaviour or remarks seen as objectionable.

"Everything humorous is critical. If you have someone who is perfectly kind and intelligent and flexible and who always behaves appropriately, they're not funny. Funniness is about people who don't do that, like Trump," he said, referring to United States President Donald Trump.

The problem with political correctness, he added, is that comedians "have to set the bar according to what we are told by the most touchy, most emotionally unstable and fragile and least stoic people in the country".

As for the Aug 2 live stream to be held at London's Cadogan Hall, Cleese says he expects to perform for about 50 people seated at a social distance.

He says he is not bothered by playing in front of such a small crowd.

"I played to an audience once in New Zealand where I did not get a laugh," he said.

REUTERS