'They are clueless': John Cleese won't do comedy on the BBC again
Fawlty Towers legend John Cleese does not intend to work with the BBC again as he took aim at the corporation's "committee" approach to comedy.
John Cleese has vowed not to work with the BBC again.
The 85-year-old comedian created the iconic sitcom Fawlty Towers for the corporation alongside his first wife and co-star Connie Booth but has hit out at the BBC's use of "committees" to approve whether comedies will make it to the screen.
Speaking at the Slapstick comedy festival in Bristol recently, John said: "If you put a script in now it has to go through a f****** 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"The whole process has been replaced by a bureaucratic process which does not begin to work."
Cleese is frustrated by the supposed decline of British comedy and bemoaned how all humour has to be "clean" in the modern climate.
The Monty Python legend said: "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."
Cleese 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."
Meanwhile, John is taking his Not Dead Yet tour to the United States and joked that the travel could end up finishing him off.
He told MailOnline: "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.
"I'm hoping not to die while I'm on tour. It's exhausting, it's ridiculous – and frankly, it might kill me."
The comedy icon quipped: "If this is the last time. It's not a bad way to go."
The tour, which marks the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, has been documented in Cleese's upcoming film John Cleese Packs It In – in which he prepares to deliver 23 performances in five different countries.
