Ego stroking

I watched John Cleese’s comedy heroes last night at 10pm on channel five. I thought I was going to be in for an hour of good television but how wrong I was. Instead I got an hour of Cleese stroking his comedy buddies ego’s. He did talk about genuine funny shows like Hancock’s half hour and mentioned the immortal Spike Milligan but the show was crafted in such a way Cleese became self indulgent and nostalgic about his own personal history. He didn’t drone on about Fawlty Towers (which is a classic) but he did go about Monty Python and his days supporting the goons on the radio. I was thinking to myself is he going to mention any comedian he doesn’t know or hasn’t worked with? Michael Palin’s ego was stroked with gushy admiration and although I like Palin I don’t really think he’s a comic genius.

Of course he did mention others such Steve Martin and French and Saunders and even the great Marx Brothers but he groaned about ‘getting tired of Groucho insulting old women in films’ which pissed me off because although Groucho did banter a lot with Margaret Dumont in films there was a million more one liners that came forth. To Cleese’s credit he did mention the ‘Young Ones’ with Mayall and Edmonson which has also been one of my faves, part surreal-part comedy plus it had bands playing songs in their living room.

Next week it’s Lenny Henry, who in my opinion has never been funny, well he was funny as the phantom flan flinger on Tiswas but that was a silent and masked role – I just wonder who he’ll pick and if he picks his wife (the lovely) Dawn French, there will be another moaning blog.