John Cleese lands GB News show as he says BBC would 'cancel' him within minutes

John Cleese has announced a new TV and radio show with GB News.

The comedy legend, 82, spoke of his new appointment on BBC Radio Four this morning.

He outlined that he will be hosting a new one-hour programme on the channel - and says the platform's free speech value is what convinced him to sign up.

Speaking to host Amol Amol Rajan, the Faulty Towers actor admitted he was unaware who GB News were when they approached him.

He says he had no idea of their existence because he's "pretty much given up" on modern television.

John Cleese has a new job - but says he had no idea who GB News were until recently (NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The Monty Python favourite explained: “I was approached and I didn't know who they were.

"And I don't know much about modern television because I've pretty much given up on it…and then I met one or two of the people concerned and had dinner with them and I liked them very much.

“It's a free speech channel and I am working with a young fellow, Andrew Doyle, who's a stand up comic."

John joked that the GB News audience won't be familiar with things he'll be talking about.

But he admitted that he could never do it for the BBC because he'd be "cancelled" within the first five minutes.

He made his name on the BBC in Fawlty Towers... (BBC)

....but he has had a poke at the corporation and said they would cancel him within minutes now (Getty Images)

He said: “Well, the nice thing about talking to the GB News audience is that they may not be used to hearing the sort of things I'll be saying.

"I mean, the BBC have not come to me and said ‘would you like to have some time on our shows’, and if they did I would say ‘not on your nelly, because I wouldn't get wouldn't get five minutes into the first show before I'd been cancelled or censored!"

Last year, he said he is putting in a formal complaint about the “deception, dishonesty and tone” of a recent BBC interview he had given.

The star claimed the interviewer had tried to portray him as “old-fashioned, uncaring and basically harmful” and had not discussed the agreed on topics.

“I just did an interview with BBC World Asia. It was to talk about the shows I’m doing in Singapore and Bangkok,” he wrote in a Twitter thread.

“Instead, the interviewer, whose name was, I think, Karishma, started by asking me questions about Cancel Culture.

“I replied courteously and in full I explained that if parents were over protective, it did not prepare children well when they entered the real and often not-very-nice world.

“She then asked a disjointed question, clearly trying to portray me as old-fashioned, uncaring and basically harmful.”