Calgary Expo 2022 John Cleese Panel

May 3, 2022 at 7:50pm
By Jason Stettner

Notes for this panel compiled by Chantelle Stettner. At the Calgary Expo 2022 there was a John Cleese panel at the Main Stage where he went over his career. It was largely focused on some comedic bits alongside a real desire to not have to go and sign autographs. It was a real pleasure to watch and I skipped over Troy Baker entirely for it.

Anyways, he would like to live in Canada if it weren’t so cold. The Canadians are friendly, with the question of how do you get two hundred Canadians to jump into an ice cold pool? Ask them nicely. His jokes delivered essentially all of the time, even the shock ones had their intended impact which was fascinating to see in action.

He mentioned having a performance in the city in the next month, and that if not for his manager he’d go on about his divorce in every show. The secret to a successful relationship is to not get married. Once you’re married you’re fucked ya know, all your money to get out of it. The last one cost him twenty-five million pounds.

Moving onto James Bond where he played Q, it was fun. The second one he did was nicer since Brianna was a joy. Allowed him to do some dialogue writing. In the modern era the issue with Bond is that it’s so successful financially. The movies and their success is measured by money.

British humor and fun is lost due to the huge Asian audience as they wanted action, so it ends up watered down to please the audience. When it comes to the Harry Potter movie he had issues with the special effects. He had no idea what was going on and neither did the director. It’s a miserable experience, you get paid half your normal fee since everyone wants to be in Harry Potter, do Bond films instead he mentions. His favorite and or funniest Monty Python bit is when the made the Cheese Sketch.

It was a progressingly growing level of worry in regards to whether or not it was actually funny. From there he went on about the development of good comedy. Jokes will arise if the plot as funny reasons. He writes nothing but the plot for a long time to know if the scenes have potential. It takes time to write good pages and to develop patience. Make the character funny to push the plot forward. He then talked about comedy being very different from dramas.

Mostly in terms of how they’re shot as taking the dramatic approach to a comedy ruins the appeal and breathing room of a season. The inspiration for the rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail was that they needed to meet a horrible creature. That creature needed to be something pathetic. A mouse was too small, sheep was too smart. That about sums everything up, we have additional panel and other coverage from the show in our hub.

View our Charles Martinet Panel Coverage
View our Calgary Expo 2022 Hub