‘Literal-minded’ people have ruined comedy by failing to understand ‘metaphor, irony and exaggeration’ and missing the punchline, John Cleese has claimed.
Ahead of the premiere of his stage version of the beloved British comedy Fawlty Towers, Cleese talked about the challenges he faced in getting the script off the ground and his concerns about how some of the language would be interpreted by the audience.
Cleese, 84, explained that some of the original dialogue used within the two-hour play, which merges three popular episodes into an overarching storyline, has been edited to remove ‘racial slurs’ due to changing perceptions within society.
‘I think there was a scene where Major (Gowen) used a couple of words you can’t use now—racial slurs they would come under, so we took that out’, he told journalists on Thursday.
‘You see, there is always a problem with comedy that you deal with the literal-minded.’
The play is based on episodes from the sitcom’s two series titled The Hotel Inspector, Communication Problems and The Germans, which originally features a scene in which the Major Gowen character uses offensive language about the West Indies cricket team.
In 2020, the episode was briefly removed from UKTV’s streaming service, which is owned by BBC Studios, due to the ‘racial slurs’ before it was later reinstated with added guidance and warnings highlighting ‘potentially offensive content and language’ featured.
Speaking on the challenges of writing comedy, Cleese said: ‘Whenever you’re doing comedy, you’re up against the literal-minded, and the literal-minded don’t understand irony.
‘And that means if you take them seriously, you get rid of a lot of comedy because literal-minded people don’t understand metaphor, they don’t understand irony, and they don’t understand comic exaggeration.
‘The result is, if you listen to them, these are people who are not, as far as understanding what other human beings are saying and doing, playing with a full deck.’
He also defended the central character within the 1960s comedy Til Death Us Do Part, Alf Garnett, who made offensive remarks, saying that viewers were ‘roaring with laughter at him, not with him’ but also acknowledged that some were saying, ‘Thank God these things are being said at last’.
The cast of the new Fawlty Towers play, in which Adam Jackson-Smith plays the iconic character of Basil, performed two sequences at the play’s premiere. Previews of the production start this Saturday at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Reflecting on the state of comedy in UK theatre, Cleese said he felt there had been ‘too much change’ in British society in recent years.
Humour is supposed to offend on occasion. John is right and being funny is no longer acceptable in some quarters. What a sad reflection on life! But there have always been and will always be people who have no or little sense of humour.
Comedians should be able to push boundaries and offend without fear, but unfortunately, society has become closed-minded, and now people simply don’t understand irony. Education standards have fallen dramatically and social media has taken its toll and has manipulated the thoughts of the weaker mind which are now being told how to think.
Much has been imported and distorted British values. British humour is cynicism and sarcasm and if you don’t appreciate either, then you’re no fun.
With everyone becoming too literal in their thinking and people not understanding irony, comedy appears to have taken a decade off. It’s also hard to satirise anything these days.
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