John Cleese | "I'm not allowed to make jokes tonight" | SVT/NRK/Skavlan

please welcome John please thank you hi are you often on crutches yourself I know but I have an artificial knee and an artificial hip where I could no longer do a funny walk anyway I'm not allowed to make jokes tonight now if I make a joke it's gonna be very painful no he could sue me I haven't even paid off the alimony it won't be a real trouble we had a little chat about this agreement so I thought I'd summarize the plot of Moby Dick or we can talk politics in Sweden I love the new election it's quite an Italian yeah it's all very very strange because we're used to you being so stable all the time and sensible and now you're getting right the rest of the world not like America please God no no oh dear what a mess that is whatever John it's great to have you back on the show yes it's great thank you to help me back up yes I would say this is my game face you know he can stand a little pain he can stand it yeah Donnie's butch isn't he he's a real Tuffy and I was such a wuss ah you know I was always such a wuss I was look very tall yeah very very tall and incredibly skinny when I was 12 I was 193 when I was twelve as taller than all the teachers but I was so physically well and 193 yeah and I was I was so physically weak that I was a bag of bones and but this guy's always been a huge great butch athlete haven't boom yes oh no you know when you workout and it takes them and yeah yeah just hit some weights easy easy you have any experience without working out you're new I just work out I stopped a year ago when I was 74 I thought I can't do all this traveling and take exercise and also I'm having a baby it's actually healing I think you're not I mean you're not really first and foremost a performer you're a writer I'm a writer that's what I claim in the book but of course people don't believe me because when they see me they see me acting they don't see me sitting at a desk right well you wrote the book I wrote the book I wrote the book and I wrote it you'll love this with a pencil with a pencil no hope you aren't serious no computer with an and it's got a brilliant new invention on the end which is called an india-rubber you rise in the book and then if you've written it wrongly and it doesn't sound right when you read it up then you can rub it like technology that's how I did there I have about eight exercise books full of my handwritten pencils that is that how you write your scripts as well yeah what I didn't know about him was that you've been you've been a serious actor as well scroll let's go do you be the serious actress oh yeah you did Faust yes incredible I is it's hard to visualize it was very loose II for the devil right yes I was sixteen it was my first dramatic role and they wanted me to play the devil Lucifer not a good start the thing is I was so skinny like I was saying sorry incredibly skinny that the director for some reason put me in black tights very skinny legs look at that look how skinny those things I was so skinny I could have played a flamingo we have some makeup in here when I when I first walked out to do my first line I was supposed to come out and say ah-ha and the whole audience were supposed to get and of course they fell about with laughter they just laughed doo-doo-doo sometimes when you want your old material you can you make yourself laugh oh yeah well a lot of the time you forget jokes do you find the the Silly Walks funny no I never liked the silly walls I thought it was a stupid sketch it was it was a boring bit of writing it was written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones who are pretty good anyway the sheer brilliance of my performance the sketch it was but I never thought it was very good and when we started to do the touring show the stage show the first night I said I didn't want to do it you see and they said oh no you have to do it I said it's not funny I know how to do it so I go on the first night in Southampton and it lays a complete egg there's no laughter at all and I am terrific about it I'm so happy though I walk off the stage and I say you see it's not funny I am never doing it again and they said oh just one more night just do it tomorrow I said no they said please just one more and if it does they don't laugh tomorrow night and I went on the next night at Brighton and the bastards laughed the tour can we not for someone like you last time John when you wrote this first time in my life that I've been on the front page of international news that's the thing because last time John Lausanne John was on this show right he he made front-page news all over the world yeah and not because of the show but because of the trip back okay because of the Icelandic volcano all right all the way what was it called the grit the yes and we did the ash good no and you were stuck in Oslo we were recording in Oslo that's right we did the show and yes then I said well how am I gonna get out and I'd had my personal system with me and I said well what can we do can we hire a hot air balloon is there a submarine okay there is actually one you might know about tried everything then we called the cab do you know what the driver is here so I won't introduce now and because I thought it might be a wonderful reunion yes with you I'm the taxi driver Glen family please come in I don't know how you kept going all that time but I don't remember you taking a break really no you want to go to Brussels advice I asked you once to stop over to sleep no it was just amazing and you know what well the extraordinary thing was right at the beginning kettle yeah his friend who was putting my show up and he said to me would you do it one interview with in RK because it's a good news story so I said sure are the rest of the trip he was getting calls every half an hour from all the news organizations everywhere even in Germany when we went through Germany and I thought to myself this is ridiculous I got to Brussels at 2:30 in the morning got out of the car two cameramen I thought thank god that's over in the next morning whether whether they went down to breakfast let me tell you and I got the International Herald Tribune as it was called and I opened the first in there I was a first paragraph story the comedian John Cleese and of course everybody thought it was so extraordinary but the next day everyone was doing it everyone was hiring taxis reporting tell me how was this trip for you yeah I just get one day warning the football game will call me do you want to go to Brussels with John what how many miles says that so we figure out and he asked how much you shall have okay I called you the problem was I should also have had my 40 years birthday the weekend and my wife was pregnant and I say yes John so was it was like the kind of passages I wanted to talk all the time where was he more the quiet type or is it no this is funny here but in the car what I find most important areas did you get back to to your wife giving birth yes I come home Sunday and Sunday evening we go to the hospital my trees wait long days so she come on my 40 years birthday oh great that's wonderful thank you so much thank you for coming and thank you John we're gonna have a couple of our guests on or what is this Bolivia Tiki head must come first for skiing and lasagna yes Setsuko Thurlow welcome to Scandinavia do you live

Channel: Skavlan

Views: 70,486

Rating: 4.9367814 out of 5

Keywords: Skavlan, interview, talk show, Fredrik skavlan, John Cleese (TV Writer), Faust (Opera), Swedish, Reelection

Id: 9ba_4F4qCBA

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 05 2014