NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “John Cleese’s memoir is just about everything one would expect of its author—smart, thoughtful, provocative and above all funny. . . . A picture, if you will, of the artist as a young man.”—The Washington Post The legendary writer and performer of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame takes readers on a grand tour of his ascent in the entertainment world John Cleese’s huge comedic influence has stretched across generations; his sharp irreverent eye and the unique brand of physical comedy he perfected now seem written into comedy’s DNA. In this rollicking memoir, Cleese recalls his humble beginnings in a sleepy English town, his early comedic days at Cambridge University (with future Python partner Graham Chapman), and the founding of the landmark comedy troupe that would propel him to worldwide renown. Cleese was just days away from graduating Cambridge and setting off on a law career when he was visited by two BBC executives, who offered him a job writing comedy for radio. That fateful moment—and a near-simultaneous offer to take his university humor revue to London’s famed West End—propelled him down a different path, cutting his teeth writing for stars like David Frost and Peter Sellers, and eventually joining the five other Pythons to pioneer a new kind of comedy that prized invention, silliness, and absurdity. Along the way, he found his first true love with the actress Connie Booth and transformed himself from a reluctant performer to a world class actor and back again. Twisting and turning through surprising stories and hilarious digressions—with some brief pauses along the way that comprise a fascinating primer on what’s funny and why—this story of a young man’s journey to the pinnacle of comedy is a masterly performance by a master performer.
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“No one else could perform this work by John Cleese. His presence, his voice, his speaking style are hilarious and hypnotic. You’ll listen to it for hours and want more. It’s a wonderful look at the Monty Python founder’s early life and career…The audiobook ends with Python’s beginning, so there’s not as much Python as fans would like, but they’ll love what’s there. Cleese is smart, funny, and wonderfully British as he provides behind-the-scenes stories of his work with fellow Python Graham Chapman as well as with Peter Sellers, David Frost, and many others…The audiobook leaves Python fans begging for a sequel. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” — AudioFile
“No one else could perform this work by John Cleese. His presence, his voice, his speaking style are hilarious and hypnotic. You’ll listen to it for hours and want more. It’s a wonderful look at the Monty Python founder’s early life and career…The audiobook ends with Python’s beginning, so there’s not as much Python as fans would like, but they’ll love what’s there. Cleese is smart, funny, and wonderfully British as he provides behind-the-scenes stories of his work with fellow Python Graham Chapman as well as with Peter Sellers, David Frost, and many others…The audiobook leaves Python fans begging for a sequel. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
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John Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. In the late 1960s he became a member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films. In the mid-1970s, he and his first wife Connie Booth cowrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. He has lent his voice to many projects, including narrating C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.
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