Freddy

Apparantly he was involved in his son's production at prep school and that revived his enthusiasm.



Freddy

samkydd

Compared with such awful kack such as My Family, Two Pints of Lager and many other relatively new sitcoms Fawlty Towers it is still quite funny. Possibly because it shows up the snobbery of the British lower middle classes as they bend over backwards in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the upper classes and titled folk, and then show total contempt for the working classes including their own staff and all foreigners of course. Add to this the eccentric behaviour of hen-pecked Basil as he tries to put one over on his wife and loses out each time, plus the frustration of being a total failure, and there you have the ingredients for a good sitcom.

I wouldn't say Cleese was particularly funny in all things he was in, especially that awful film Clockwise which was painful to watch in parts. A Fish Called Wanda was, in my opinion, not as funny as the world and his dog made out at the time! It had to accommodate an American audience as well, which must be a bit of a sod if you write comedy because you've only got to watch that codswallop Friends or The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air etc to realise that we're poles apart on the humour front.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Torquemada

While making my way, head down, through central Kingston in the early 90s I accidentally banged into someone and when I looked up it was Rowan Atkinson doing his rubber face exercises and he didn't even flinch. It was only then I noticed the rest of the crew and cameras.

homeguard

Now that BAA is Spanish, I'd like to hit a little Spanish person. Not a big one you understand!
By the way, Mr.Atkinson is doing fine. We see him most days, and a more naturally sombre person it would be difficult to meet. I just can't ever forgive him for adding to the level of disrespect shown to our police force by taking the p*** every chance he got. Cheap laughs for shed-loads of money. It wasn't funny though when his little boy was attacked in Oundle by a bunch of yobs.
Regards,
HG

julian_craster

But can he sing ?

Fagin has several musical numbers.....


Atkinson signs up for Fagin role
BBC NEWS



Atkinson shot to fame in sketch show Not The Nine O'Clock News

Rowan Atkinson is to star as Fagin in the forthcoming West End stage production of Oliver!

The cast will also include the winners of the BBC show I'd Do Anything - one actress will play Nancy and three boys will take turns to play the lead role.
Blackadder star Atkinson, 53, said the role was a long-held ambition.
"In the 1980s I enjoyed doing a lot of West End theatre and since then have been distracted very much by Mr Bean and film-making," he said.
"I had been thinking for some time about returning to the stage and the idea of the role of Fagin, which has long intrigued me.
"Some time ago I even played the role in a school production [so it] seemed like too good an opportunity to miss."


'Perfect marriage'
Sir Cameron Mackintosh's production of the Lionel Bart musical opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in December. It will feature a cast 100-strong cast.
Sir Cameron said he had been in discussions with Atkinson "on and off for many years".
"To me this idea has always promised the perfect marriage of a brilliant mercurial role with a brilliant mercurial comic actor," he added.
The 1994 London Palladium production of Oliver! played 1,366 performances over three years and made more than £40m at the box office.
Atkinson made his big-screen debut in 1983's unofficial James Bond picture Never Say Never Again.
His other film credits include Johnny English, Four Weddings And A Funeral and Love, Actually.

EHV_Emmetts

RA was brilliant in Blackadder 2, 3 and 4. The first series of Blackadder was expensively produced rubbish. 'Mr Bean' is aimed at children and the cartoon version is aimed at the youngest. The 'Bean' films are just simply appalling, but they're not aimed at me.

The last time I saw JC on television was on the ITV 50th birthday "celebration". He did a teeth-itchingly awful "sketch" with Gervais.

dogstar

I've always thought Cleese needed very specific material to be seen to good effect and when he had it e.g. his early stuff with David Frost, Python and Fawlty Towers he was excellent but in most else he was frankly pretty awful - Rat Race springs immediately to mind. I have a particular dislike of Fish Called Wanda, which to be fair isn't down to Cleese who was actually Ok in it I thought.

Only a fool looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart....

EHV_Emmetts

I heard Cleese on a radio interview a while back saying that he thought that only about a third of Python's output was good.

'A Fish Called Wanda' I don't think was all that bad - whereas 'Fierce Creatures' was an absolute stinker.

christoph404

I loathe Mr Bean and never found it funny at all. The Black Adder series was great due to good writing and other characters for RA to interact with. I think RA is a squilianaire after selling a TV production company I think he owned with Griff Rhyss Jones, another unfunny "comedian". Luckily for them they don't have to rely on their "comedy" to make ends meet. As for John Cleese and Fawlty Towers, well it is a classic and it is funny but it has taken a long time for people to get it because when it first aired on TV it got a lukewarm critical response and did not have particularly high viewing figures on its first run. It has grown in popularity as time has passed but was looked on as a bit of a miss when it first appeared on TV.

rskershaw

'Not The Nine O'Clock News' was great satire. Maybe he should think of reviving instead of selling out to The States and Barclaycard.

And what's all this about me having me leg off?

EHV_Emmetts

When Cleese left Monty Python he worked briefly as the straight man opposite Les Dawson on 'Sez Les'.

Merton Park

To christoph404

The production company that Griff Rhys Jones sold was owned with Mel Smith not Rowan Atkinson.

bhowells

I thought that Rowan Atkinson was going to appear as Fagin in the new West End production of Oliver.

Loved him in Not The Nine O Clock News, Black Adder, but he milked Mr Bean for all it was worth.

He has given some interviews over the years he was on breakfast tv on BBc last year to promote the last Bean movie.

John Cleese has just divorced his third wife, the selltment was quite large so I suspect he will be doing lots of voice overs.

EHV_Emmetts

That's what I've also heard (read). It's taken seemingly half a lifetime to "find" the new Nancy which means that this production won't be on stage until Christmas time.

christoph404

Yep, quite right, cheers for that, I stand corrected. So did Atkinson make his reputed £100million from his comedy work? Incredible!