John Cleese snapped at Good Morning Britain host Ed Balls during an interview about his forthcoming show with GB News.
The Fawlty Towers creator, 83, appeared on the ITV breakfast show to discuss his new interview series, titled The Dinosaur Hour, when Balls alluded to the recent sacking of Cleese’s fellow GB News presenter, Laurence Fox.
“They made me the best offer anyone has ever made anyone in television…” Cleese began, before Balls interrupted and said: “You’re the only presenter joining them rather than leaving at the moment.”
“Well, they’re clearing out a certain amount, which is not a bad idea,” Cleese answered. “Because they do believe in free speech...”
“Get the old blood out and the new blood in,” Balls said, interrupting again.
“Will you shut up?” an indignant Cleese responded, prompting Balls and co-host Susanna Reid to burst into giggles.
“Well, you were asking a question then talking over the answer, I supposed,” Reid told Balls.
During the interview, Cleese claimed that comedy at the BBC is in a “parlous state” because executives “want to control everything”.
He said that he took up the offer from GB News because he was told he could “do anything you like”.
“Nobody’s ever said that to anyone because most television executives have no idea what they’re doing, but they want to control things anyway,” he said.
“My experience was that, with very few exceptions on the BBC about 40 years ago, they don’t know what they’re doing, but they want to control everything and they don’t trust the talent.”
He continued: “The moment they get someone – ‘talent’ – they say, ‘What sort of show are you going to do?’, then they want to make lots of suggestions.
“They say, ‘We want to know what we’re getting.’ And I say, ‘Well, you’re getting me, but if you don’t trust me, don’t hire me.’ But they try to control everything. And that is why BBC comedy is in such a parlous state at the moment.
Cleese will soon host his own show on GB News— (PA)
“The young comedians tell me how hard it is to get anything accepted, because it’s all committees. And the BBC is now run like a bureaucracy, and that’s not good for nurturing talent.”
Earlier this year, Cleese shocked the comedy world as he announced that he and his daughter Camilla would be bringing back his classic Seventies sitcom Fawlty Towers.
The news was met with scepticism from comedy fans, many of whom questioned why the much-adored show – which originally ran for 12 half-hour episodes – needed to be revived.
The new series will see Basil Fawlty (Cleese) teaming up with his daughter to run a boutique hotel while he navigates the modern world.
After the reboot was announced, Cleese disputed claims made in a Guardian column that the new Fawlty Towers would be an “anti-woke nightmare”.
The comic, who is known for railing against political correctness, said that “the idea that it’s all going to be about wokery hadn’t particularly occurred to me”.
Discussing the backlash to the news on GMB, Cleese said that the announcement of the return was made too early. “People have no idea what they are talking about because they have no idea what we’re going to do,” he said.
“The problem was it shouldn’t have been announced for about another 12 months... But Camilla and I have done about two weeks’ work and we’re starting again on Monday because we’re doing a tour together on a bus.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
