Monty Python legend John Cleese has vowed never to work with the BBC again. The 85-year-old created the iconic sitcom Fawlty Towers for the corporation in 1975.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which made John, as well as co-stars Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, household names also aired on the BBC. The show launched in 1969 and ran for four series.It led to a number of film spin-offs, books, and stage productions. However John, who starred in Fawlty Towers alongside wife Connie Booth, has slammed the BBC for using “committees” to decide if a comedy is made.
Speaking at the Slapstick comedy festival in Bristol, where he was given a Legacy Medal, John said: “If you put a script in now it has to go through a f*****g committee who have no idea what they are doing.
“There has been nothing funny since The Office. It is sad and it is because the people in charge have no idea how to make comedy happen.
"The whole process has been replaced by a bureaucratic process which does not begin to work."
John says British comedy now has to be “clean” to appease a modern audience. He says it has now led to a decline in British comedy.
"I'm hoping not to die while I'm on tour. It's exhausting, it's ridiculous – and frankly, it might kill me. If this is the last time. It's not a bad way to go."
In 2014 John admitted that he looked forward to being dead. He also said he would never make another film because of the amount of work it takes to get one to the screen.
Asked if he would write a third movie after A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures, he said: “No, because it is too much like hard work.
“It is two-and-three-quarter years and I am too old for that process. If I started on it now I would die. I have only got five or six years left and I will be gone – I won’t have to worry about ISIS or Ebola, I am looking forward to it.
"Most of the best people are dead – I will be in excellent company having a wonderful time.”
The BBC has been approached for a comment.
He continued: “We used to be really good at it and now we are not and that is very sad. There weren't committees when we started. Comedy now has to be clean. You must not play for laughs.
"I am going to write a book about writing comedy to make people aware how difficult it is."
John added: "The people organising comedy have never been very good but at the moment particularly at the BBC they are clueless. I don't think it is a lack of talent – except among the executive classes. Those classes have no idea what they are doing."
John is set to embark on a five-nation tour to mark five decades since the release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He will be hosting 23 shows as part of the Not Dead Yet Tour.
John however jokes that the tour could finish him off. He said: "I'm 85 years old. I've got two replacement hips, a replacement knee, I'm deaf in one ear, I've got a pacemaker – and I've had three hair transplants.
