John Cleese said he would tell the BBC “not on your nelly” if it asked him to make a new programme (PA)
(Picture: PA Media)Monty Python star John Cleese has announced that he will host his own show on GB News in 2023.
The actor, 82, said he will work alongside writer and comedian Andrew Doyle on a programme aimed at encouraging “proper argument”.
Mr Cleese said he will discuss issues surrounding cancel culture and “woke” politics on his show.
He also warned that TV audiences “may not be used to hearing the sort of things I’ll be saying”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said he became interested in working for the broadcast outlet following a meeting with producers.
He said: “I don’t know much about modern television because I’ve pretty much given up on it. I mean, English television.
“And then I met one or two of the people concerned and had dinner with them, and I liked them very much. And what they said was: ‘People say it’s the right-wing channel – it’s a free speech channel.”
Mr Cleese added that he would have turned down the chance of working for a mainstream broadcaster like the BBC because he feels he’d be “cancelled or censored” within the first five minutes.
He added: “The BBC have not come to me and said: ‘Would you like to have some one-hour shows?’
“And if they did, I would say: ‘Not on your nelly!’ Because I wouldn’t get five minutes into the first show before I’d been cancelled or censored.”
Mr Cleese rose to fame as part of the British surreal comedy troupe Monty Python in the late 1960s and early 70s.
But he said he does not feel the show would receive a warm reception if it were made today.
“Well, the guy who was in charge of light entertainment about four years ago said he wouldn’t commission it now because it’s six white people, five of whom went to Oxbridge,” he said.
He added: “But the point was they made a programme that a lot of people liked.
“If people enjoy something, then the BBC should be making more of it. And if people don’t enjoy something, they should probably be making less of it. But their job is to produce the best possible programmes.”
Writer Andrew Doyle, who will executive produce the programme, said: “John will have complete creative freedom to have the conversations he wants to have with the people who interest him most.
“Like John himself, it will be far from predictable.”
