1976: CLEESE on CLASS | Tonight | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive

"Trapped in a shell of lower-middle class… reasonableness and politeness."

John Cleese was at his best playing the both respectable but quietly seething everyman, and diffident patrician sociopaths. Here, he talks frankly about his anger, his strait-laced upbringing and abandoning his respectable Cambridge law degree. His then-wife Connie Booth and Tim Brooke-Taylor also offer insights into Cleese’s self-criticism and how close he is to Basil Fawlty in real life.

Excerpt taken from Tonight, originally broadcast on BBC One, Friday 20 February, 1976.




You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.

Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - https://www.youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?...