John Cleese celebrating 50 years of ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’

John Cleese took a big danger when he helped create Monty Python and the Holy Grail back in as the idea of a series of parody sketches centered around King Arthur seemed absurd compared to comedy of the era But it s the absurdity that made it such a hit Fifty years later Cleese now is still meeting new people who were moved by the film and he s just as excited as ever to talk about what it was like to make it and the impact it s had on the comedy world Cleese will sit down with an audience at San Jose Civic on Sept to watch a screening of the film then have a Q A with the audience where he plans to share behind-the-scenes stories Tickets - subject to change are available at sanjosetheaters org Cleese sat down with the Bay Area News Group to discuss what it s like to interact with modern comedy fans who are attracted to the -year-old film and what necessities to happen in order for new comedies to continue pushing the envelope the way Monty Python once did This interview has been edited for clarity and length Q John how are you doing these days A I m pretty strung out I just flew in from London last night and it was one of the the bulk uncomfortable seats I ve ever been on in an aircraft Unbelievable And it s a -hour flight It was awful And discussing it with the crew one of the things that makes me mad to think about is how decisions are made about design without other people being consulates It s that stupid arrogance Q That reminds me of a quote stated by your Emmy-Award-winning character Dr Simon Finch-Royce on the sitcom Cheers in when someone required you How was your flight And you responded Relatively crash-free A Guffawing That was one of the best scripts I ve ever had Written by the Charles brothers Q When it comes to Monty Python you must be weary after talking about it for years no A Not really the questions are invariably slightly different and I learn different things I learned a lot about laughter in the last years and how critical it is for people So I regard laughter as essential now rather than as a luxury As my views change my thoughts change Q When you interact with people who loved Monty Python has the stuff they loved about it changed over time Or have the people who love it changed A It delights me that there are so multiple people -somethings and a lot of them say When I saw Monty Python it opened the door to a new world People had never seen that kind of silliness Several of it is very intelligent too People hadn t seen it Suddenly they got very excited because they thought I like this I like this new way of thinking and a general skepticism of why people are doing things When King Arthur says I am King Arthur and the peasants say Well we didn t vote for you those are big questions The lovely thing is all these people often have tears in their eyes when they say thank you for making me laugh And it s because laughter is good for us It s good physiologically One guy in Sweden stated me when he left for the show his blood pressure had been When he got back it was down to It was an extraordinary drop in blood pressure because he sat there and laughed for two hours People don t talk about that enough People used to say laughter is the best medicine It helps a lot And it makes me feel like I m doing something that s really useful rather than something that s just pleasurable Q Instead of sending people to the hospital perhaps we should send them to a comedy show A Well there s a guy called Norman Cousins that claimed he cured himself by watching comedy He put a room in all hospitals where people could go and watch comedy videos People used to use them But you don t hear this stuff because it s not materialist science so it doesn t count Scientists sweep it under the carpet if it s anything they can t explain Q When Monty Python first came out a lot of people declared Wow this is something different The way things get made these days where studios may be more drawn to projects that match the algorithm of a sure thing rather than taking a threat on something different is it challenging for younger folks trying to do something different the way you were with Monty Python Do you talk to young folks trying to be different in comedy A I do and as far as the BBC is concerned I m absolutely appalled It s as though it s set up to crush creativity It s as though the executives want to be the creative people and want to be the stars and to tell people what sort of shows they re looking for Whereas what you should do is you find somebody very talented and say what do you want to do And you facilitate it That s how you get great shows Ego screws up bulk of the things in this life You have no idea how stupid a lot of these TV executives are You won t believe this story but I met someone who commented I was on a weekend holiday and I met particular American executives and they noted they just bought the rights to Fawlty Towers and I announced I m delighted Can I help They disclosed No they don t need help I explained Well do they need to change anything And they noted No we ve already made one change And I commented What s that And they commented We ve written out Basil main character Basil Fawlty played by Cleese That s off-the-scale stupidity And of program it was a tragedy because they had no idea what they were doing I could go on for a long time about this but I think this is generally true there s an enormous number of people in charge that don t know what they re doing And the trouble is ego Q You literally wrote a book on creativity If you were giving advice to comedy writers trying to be creative in the modern world what would you tell them A I tell people how they can become better writers I have certain little exercises I share with them But I say if you are handing scripts in to people who don t know what they re doing there s a guy at the BBC who I met in recent months who was commissioning comedy scripts who was a complete idiot what does a young writer do if they hand a script over to someone who he assumes knows what he s doing but he gets criticism or suggestions what are wholly wrong I remember talking to Disney once and they loved a script I had done and they disclosed Will you make specific changes in the next couple of weeks And I commented I m afraid I can t They got very surprised Why can t you I stated I don t know how to make the script worse I d be trying to make it better and that s not what you want So of class that was the end of that My general feeling is executives think they know what they re doing but they don t If they declared we don t really know but we re going to facilitate people who have real talent well then you d get something better than if they try to be creative themselves Leave that to people with creative talent You can tell I can get quite worked up about this