So, Anyway...: The Autobiography

by John Cleese

Candid and brilliantly funny, this is the story of how a tall, shy youth from Weston-super-Mare went on to become a self-confessed legend. En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python.

Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.

• ISBN10: 1847946968
• ISBN13: 9781847946966
• Publish Date: 9 October 2014 (first published 1 January 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 10 August 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Cornerstone
• Imprint: Random House Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[lindsey]

Copy received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I had been more familiar with John Cleese's work. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, I just wasn't the ideal audience.

So, Anyway... was very well-written. It was almost as though I was sitting in a room with him while he shared anecdotes from his life.

He begins by talking about his childhood, and then gradually works his way through to Monty Python. While it was a quick read, there were a few slow parts in the middle of the book. But, again, people familiar with his work may not have an issue with that. I have to admit that I enjoyed reading more about his life while he was at school than his days writing comedy sketches, but that's because reading about someone writing is not very entertaining. Therefore, I'm glad he included bits of some of his favorite sketches. While some of them may have been funnier performed onstage, most of them were still amusing enough on their own to make me laugh out loud.

I would highly recommend this to fans of John Cleese, and to anyone who really enjoys British comedy.