Test Match Special - #40from40: John Cleese

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

Actor and comedian John Cleese joins Brian Johnston for a memorable interview during a Test match Headingley in 1986.

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Welcome to the Test Match Special podcast and our series Classic View from the Boundary. I'm Jonathan Agnew. We've got a real treat for you today with an interview from 1986 with one of Britain's biggest comedy stars. Star of Monty Python and Faulty Towers, John Cleese watched the entire morning session on the back of the old Headingley Commentary Box as England were on their way to a heavy defeat at the hands of Cappell Dev's India. Once lunchtime arrived, Cleese squeezed himself in

alongside Brian Johnston. How keen are you on cricket? Well, I wish I spent a bit more time watching it because I do get very intrigued by it. It's a wonderful game. And I lost contact with it a few years after I stopped playing. I mean, I stopped playing really after Cambridge and I never played for anybody good at Cambridge

is my college. Is anybody good at Cambridge? Oh, there were a few good ones at the time. It was really era more or less. But I went off to America and I lost, it was funny, once you've been away from the game for two or three years, it takes a long time to get back in. And I got back into England and didn't really get intrigued again

until I think two things happened. One is that Somerset started winning matches. Yes. Because I grew up on them in the 50s when I think they got the wooden spoon seven years in a row. With people like CCK and J.C.W. McBrough. Well, that was before me. They were okay.

But there was a time in the 50s when they used to win about one match of season. And I used to trot down to tauntle them. at Western Super Mera. I mean, they were terrible. Can we go right back to your beginning when you first played cricket? I mean, how tall were you as a young boy? You went to Clifton, for instance. That's right, but I was too tall too soon. I was at, I was six foot when I was 12. So when I was at prep school in Western Super Mera, where actually I was coached by Bill

Andrews. Oh, were you? Yeah. What a character. That's right. A lovely Bill Andrews. Well, one of the difficulties about my cricket watching was always that I grew up with That extraordinary Somerset team in the late 40s and people like Harold Gimlet and Arthur Wellard. Dear Bertie Buse. Was Lucky's still keeping wicked?

No, no. That was just after he'd stopped. That's Bertie Bues. Get the pub later. Oh, he was wonderful. That extraordinary little hop, skip and jumpy runner. And tiny little Johnny Lawrence and Harold Stevenson, and they were, I cannot imagine a team so full of personalities as those.

And anything after that has always seemed a little less colourful. To me, the sad thing is, that was fun and they mightn't have done so well now it's all must win must win and you get the supporters you really want to see them win and not really care about the characters or the sort of type of cricket absolutely but that's been a kind of continuing process as long as i can i can remember the winning has become progressively more important and once that happens sport loses something doesn't it i mean the great the great moments of sportsmanship do or send a kind of thrill around the crowd because they're a

reminder that what is actually bringing us together, what is uniting us, is greater than the need to defeat each other. And that's why those great moments of sportsmanship are so touching and absolutely transform the atmosphere around the ground in a moment. But there's very little of that now because the idea that winning is more important than anything else has taken over so much. Absolutely right. But let's go back to a 12-year-old six-foot. I mean, you could have been a demon fastball. It's all terror of the other schools. too physically weak and fragile. I was incredibly thin, and so I used to run up quite a long way, and then bowl fairly slow, which was quite a good trick for the first ball.

Quite a problem, too, the bat. One used to use, in my day, it was a force bat, but Jack Hobbes. But, I mean, did you have a full-sized bat? No, no, I realized it was only my got to about 18, I realized I had to have a long bat, because the moment that I picked the bat up, I was literally slightly over-balancing towards the off-stump, because I was at too great an angle to start with. That's quite right. And when you went to Clifton, was the great Sinfield coach? Oh, the wonderful Red Sinfield, that's right.

Wasn't he lovely, from Hertfordshire? Yes, and a marvellous coach. In fact, although I was fond of several of the Masters at Clifton, he was really, I think I got more from Reg than I did from Ennithon. He was a terrific coach, but he also had a wonderful kind of wry humour and a kind of wisdom about him. And he went on coaching until he was 80 or something, didn't he? Well, he went on coaching at Clifton for years after I left, and he was certainly, I mean,

I remember him telling me about, but he was bowling fast to Bill Ponsford on the Australian tour in 34, so. Yes, right, you see, he played the, and I saw him, it dates me a little bit in 1926 with Dipper, who went in first for Gloucester, Dipper and Sinfield, you see, and he was a marvellous man. Well, he bowed fast to start with, and then he turned to the old... Old Ospin, like God, or they all did the... That's right, Sinfield won him. and Goddard the other, yeah.

But from Darryl Muddy Western Supermare, it's still a bit muddy, is it, the low tide? That's right, yeah, still expanses of mud as far as the Welsh coast. And still with a lot of donkeys? Well, not so many now. I think that the economics are beginning to go against the donkeys. That must have been awkward for you, too, because if you were on a donkey, your legs were more or less running,

and the donkey wasn't. That's right, and it's where my daughter got hooked on riding. Is she a sort of show jumper thing? Well, she was going in that direction until about a year ago, and then she got a little bit less interested in it. So you had Somerset as yours, did you have any sort of England players other than Somerset players? You particularly followed any sort of the greats like the Hammonds or he was on even before you really there? Well, it was, I suppose Dennis Compton was one. But it was funny enough, it was more that old Somerset team that caught my imagination.

nation. And I think I began to lose a little bit of interest by about the fifth year in a row that we got the wooden spoon. And then, as I said, I seem to get back into it, partly because the Somerset teams of the late 70s started winning one or two trophies. I can still remember sitting at Lords when we won our first, what was it? I'm so confused. Gillette Cup, was it? What year was that? Do you remember 70? 78? Something in the late 70s. We've been in the final the previous year and lost to Sussex. And then we beat Northam. And lots of cider on the ground.

But it would never be the same. I mean, I actually sat there thinking they've won something. They've actually won. It was the first time they'd won anything in 100 years. And I felt it will never be the same again. The romance has gone out. Did you have a captain aside? Yes, yes.

I captained my prep school team. I've got a photograph of myself walking off because by that time I was six, one and a half. And of course, all the outfits were about four foot. It's an extraordinary picture. I think people would be interested. You don't mind analysing yourself a little bit. I mean, people think of you as irascible. But that's only since 40 tyres, actually, Brian.

They think of you as that. Yes, because what happens is that people form a kind of stereotyped image of you, depending on what was the last thing that you did. And if you go back almost 20 years, because I've actually been on the box for 20 years this year, to the time when I started with David Frost, in 1966. Cross reports.

Cross reports, with Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbitt, Julie Felix, Tom Lera. In those days, I was very much a frosty sidekick and people would expect me to be around standing by David Frost. And then shortly after that, Python started, only about three years later. And then I was regarded as a great, kooky, zany, madcap, I can't remember what the other word was. Very often sort of the establishment figure who was being mocked, I mean in pinstripe and bowler hat. But that's not what people remembered so much, although that was actually much more

accurately what I did. People kind of thought of me as just being wild and unpredictable, which unfortunately I've never achieved that. In private life, are you wild and unpredictable? No, I'm rather tame and predictable and boring, actually, rather quiet. Slightly introverted, which surprises people, but you often find that people who are slightly shy and introverted, as I think I am, are able to kind of explode into action when they're given a sound. socially sanctioned opportunity to do so, like they're on the stage and they damn will have to be extravert. The dead parrot I was fond of and also the cheese shop.

Do you remember the cheese shop? Oh, yes. The cheese shop. Did you write those as well? Yes, most of them. One of my disappoints with Python is we always fell into the pattern of writing with the same people. I think it would have been much more fun if we'd mix the writing.

Did you all sit around a table? Well, we used to sit around for about three days at the beginning of a series and have lots of ideas and agree what we were going to write and then go off and write completely different things. I think that was because once somebody thought of an idea, there was no honour in writing it. I mean, the prestige comes from thinking of the idea of writing it. And then we used to get together about every week and read each other's material actors. But not a great deal of passion for cricket amongst the Python group. Well, you used to have some sketches which took off me and Peter West once or twice.

Oh yes, you're absolutely right. I don't know who was the chap who put those in, because one of them obviously was fairly keen, because he obviously watched this very close in, took off all our You were very well... Well, I'm afraid that was me. Was it? But you did, didn't you? And you made no pretence to it was.

You said, Brian and Peter were the word. That's right. That's right. Yes, I forgot that sketch. Well, I think I wrote that originally for the radio. And then I think we rewrote it as far as I remember. Yes, and we had one or two others. We also had Pasolini's test match,

which had naked cricketers riding around on the ground. Do you think that would improve, create, to have the naked? No, I like it. it stayed with the white flannels and the that's right at Cambridge you've got into the footlights but I mean had you done any sort of acting before well I don't really know it's all very strange because I mean there's not a great deal of artistic activity in Western Superman and certainly no one in my family or anywhere near it had been near entertainment or the stage or anything like that but I think it was something

to do with being so tall and also being an only child and therefore slightly reserved and capable of being on my own a lot without needing to seek out company. And I think I found that when I first went to school I was a little bit of an outsider. And I think I discovered that by making people laugh, I could get accepted more and become more popular. See, Ilferruca's today whispered to me, he said, I can't help laughing every time I look at him. Now, do you think you've got a funny face? Oh, no, not at all. Well, it's peculiar, but I wouldn't call it humorous.

Well, it is usually. It's disturbing, I think, it's the world. No, I don't think so. We've got used to because it is funny. People get used to it, but it's given enough time. And when did you discover this marvelous ability to twist your leg round in that, the city walk? Oh, the city walks. I'm not sure.

I certainly discovered I could get laughs. I remember quite distinctly in form 2A in Mr. Sanger Davis's English lesson. It's a lovely man who I'm afraid is no longer with us. He taught me cricket, but it was that particular moment when I started making. making jokes. And I remember that the class laughed and I remember that made me feel very good because it is a, it's actually wonderful feeling to make people laugh. Everybody likes to tell. I've tried for years. I haven't had the feeling yet, but I often wondered to, in those marvelous dashes you made up the stairs in Faulted tiles. I mean, did you often have to have retail? Do you always strike the right stair? Do you have a trip up going up? You went to some place. No, in a odd way, although I don't have any rhythm. I'm reasonably coordinated and nimble. I mean, I was always quite good at bull games, just provided they didn't require any physical. It would suddenly turn around and race up those stairs and most people would trip up or something. No, I could do that.

I mean, everybody thought that was very funny that way. I used to walk or run when I was Basel, but that unfortunately is the way that I walk. It's not a characterisation. I mean, when you're starting to run out, you still go down a little bit, don't you? You know your heights and then you stretch out with your legs. It's something to do with reducing the wind resistance, I think. But I noticed, I'm very peculiar when I moved, and the first time I ever saw it, it was a terrible shock. We were in New Zealand doing a tour there with Timbrook Taylor and Bill Addy and David Hatch.

Oh, yes. Yes, bow, we must bow, yes, certainly. And Humphrey Barkley and Joe Kendall, I think. And Johnny Lynn, of course, yeah. And the New Zealand people came along and taped the show. And it was the first time any of us had seen ourselves. Now, you know what a shock it is when you first hear your voice on a tape recorder. You sound as if you're from Birmingham.

You know, you're right up here or something. You think that can't be mean. Well, watching yourself on video for the first time is absolutely horrified, and I couldn't believe this creature that was using my name, because first of all, he ran around, like a, I was described it as being like a giraffe on a hovercross, because the top half kind of waves in the wind in all directions, but rather slowly and languidly. And the bottom half doesn't have any upward or downward movement, seems to be capering around on a cushion of air. And then the extraordinary thing was that I made tiny little gestures, instead of making reasonably nice, expansive gestures, I made terrible, horrid, nervous, tight gestures. And also, which was very strange, I realized that I hardly moved my lips at all when I was speaking. I had a stiff upper and lower lip. I looked like a bad ventriloquish. And I had to go and lie down for about two days because when you have damage, what do you have damage like that to your picture of yourself?

It's really quite painful. It worked on the gestures after. Are you being asked about Faulted Towers? I mean, I do mind people thinking of it as Faulted or Basel Fawcett? Well, I think that there's always a bit of you that would rather that the audience thought that the writing and acting was an exercise of craft of some kind. But it is a funny thing because John Howard Davis, who has produced the first seven-faulted Towers, he warned me in advance. He said, when he realized that the show was going to be a success, he said, you realize. that now everybody will think that you are like Mazel.

And I said, will they really? And he said, yes, it is always the case that straight actors are recognized as acting. Nobody thinks that Lawrence Olivier is going to be terribly jealous because he played Othello. You know, people are able to say, yes, that was a performance. But he said, if you do a successful character,

if you do Al Garnet or one of the Richard Breyer's characters, one of the Leonard Ross to characters, then they always think that that's a successful character, They always think that that's who you are. And it is, I have noticed it's true, that somehow, but it's only with comedy. They don't have any problems seeing that the straight actors are different from the characters. When you struck Paul Manuel, was that a sort of, you know, a false sort of clap?

Or did you actually strike him once or twice? Well, there are ways of doing it that fake it. But on one occasion, I'm afraid when I was hitting him with a saucepan, I didn't get the timing quite right. Dear old Andrew was kind of a little out to lunch for about two days. I think you did 12. Is that right? That's right, only 12. And which you know how long ago they were.

Well, I know. 75 and 79. I haven't done any for seven years. They look so fresh. Any one particular one? I mean, the one with the rat under the... The rat, I was enormously fond of. Oh, I thought that.

The rat, the special effects department, when they produced that rat, I almost kissed them. I mean, we got about 60 seconds out of that rat. sitting in the biscuit tins. Absolutely. I love the dead body. I love the dead body. And there's a favorite moment is in the one when he goes down to get the duck

from the restaurant. You remember he drops the first one, he gets the second, he's only got the blemage. And when he takes the lid off, my favorite moment is he puts the lid back on as though it might help the blamage to go away. But when he looks it up, he actually looks in the blamage. He puts his fingers down just in case there's a duck underneath.

That's always the moment that goes on. He must have had a lot of... Is it a fact that you might be writing some more, or is it curtains? No, because Connie and I, we wrote them together, and we definitely felt after we'd done the 12, that if we did any more, we knew what the audience response would be, which is people would say we enjoyed them, but they weren't as good as the first two series. I suppose that's a natural thing. I think so.

I don't think there was any way of getting around it. The second series is probably the best thing I'll ever do, which is why I don't come on television now, because if I do something isn't as good, everybody would say, ah, he's not as good anymore. a bit in the film thing now. I saw your film clockwise the other day, which is all about you're mad on punctuality. Yes, that's right. Are you in real life? No, no. It's very much Michael Frayne's film.

And Michael has admits openly, I said in all the interviews, he has a terrible problem with punctuality. When he used to fly up to Manchester to do what the papers say, he got so good on it that he actually knew if you missed the plane at Heathrow, he actually knew that there was a train

leaving Houston that he could just catch. She used to work out these fail-safe schedules. This is a wonderful film, the frustrations of you trying to get to this conference and all that. Well, the only problem with the film is that it does make some people too nervous because I know you're obsessively

petrol. I am. You asked my wife she gets furious with me. But did it make you nervous? Well, I was, yeah, I thought I was biting my nose to whether you were going to get there because I said so sorry for all these ghastly things happening and you've got the petrol station, you haven't got any money and all that. That's true. Well, it's very strange that, but just occasionally

Only people who have real problems with their punctuality themselves say they don't enjoy. Which, oddly enough, the only group of people who regularly tell me that they don't enjoy faulty towers that much are hoteliers. Because they sit there for three minutes and suddenly they see what's going to happen. They see that the chef's going to get drunk or there's going to be a dead body. And from then on, they sit there and there's appalling state of nerves. But I get that too, watching England playing cricket or football normally, particularly football. I mean, there's no enjoyment in it at all. Thank you very much.

You come up especially, we're very complimented. Well, it's very nice to be asked. And also, you do get the best view in England from this box. I mean, this is almost as good as watching it on the television. Well, we hope it's even better. I'm not sure if that's one in the eye or not. No, I'm half serious because one of the problems about sport now is that if you watch it on the television,

and in particular, if you watch either cricket or tennis, you are actually watching it from a better position than 95% of the people in the ground. You actually go to the ground. You get the atmosphere, but watching cricket from midwicket is quite a problem, and you don't really know what's going on. Well, John, John Cleese, thank you very much for coming up here, and I think England had lost the chance having a great fast bowler

when you didn't take it up as a young boy, but it would be marvellous here, six foot six and a half, or whatever you are coming in, Bill. Well, wouldn't have been something to see John charging in to bowl. He's still a big Somerset fan and gets in touch with us on Twitter from time to time. I wonder what old John is would have made of social media. Well, there are many, many more interviews from years gone by to listen to from Comedy Royalty with John Cleese.

How about actual royalty with his Royal Highness Prince Philip from way back in 1987? There was really very little opportunity to play cricket during who I did play just after the war in Malta. And also I had one ghastly match in Akabar. It's a place not to play cricket, in my opinion. And I know exactly what it feels like to run out of water in the desert

after I played bowl three overs. My tongue swell up with such a degree I couldn't breathe. Rather sandy pitch or something. Yeah, well, it was a matting, I suppose, but it's the thing I'd rather forget about it. I mean, as a boy, were you taken to watch cricket? Did you watch it? Do you have any special carers?

No, we used to, yes, we used to, certainly from Chimmy. We went up to lords to watch, I can't know what he was. I suppose it must be one of a test match or something. The usual, I suppose, I'm awfully difficult to remember names, but I seem to remember the wikikeeper was called Duck. Oh, yes, he was a quack, quack, quack, he was called. But you must have been about the same age, aren't you?

As Duckworth? No, no, I meant as, I'll do about the same age as I am. I'm a regret to say, sir. I'm about ten years old. Well, then you'd remember all these children. I'd remember all them. I wondered if you saw the great Wally Hammond, because he was a chap who stood out there, or even Bradman. And Bradman, oh, yeah, surely. Well, amazing stuff with Prince Philip and John is there.

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