Dir: Andy Curd. With: John Cleese. 80 mins. Cert: 12A
The long and fabled history of Python reaches its footnotes and afterthoughts era. After years of interpersonal disputes, multiple forays into the culture war and one very expensive divorce, 85-year-old John Cleese goes solo in this thin 80-minute travelogue, undertaking a European mini-tour while enduring a rollcall of ailments (partial deafness, bone spurs, vertigo) which appears at least as substantive as his onstage material. Explaining his motivation, Cleese is not untypically blunt: a wheezy “I need the money” is the closest Andy Curd’s doc locates to a running gag.
What are we offered in return? Near-relentless gripes and grievances that mesh with Cleese’s recent media profile, ranging from endless repacking to being filmed at all hours. (Perhaps forgivable, given Curd’s often unflattering angles.) Also lambasted: audiences who refuse to titter at such routines as the one in which Cleese spends a small eternity hacking up phlegm. We get oddly little of the show itself, much B-roll filler in fish markets and cheese shops, and an unlovely photomontage of the comic’s battered big toe. (In fairness, he warns us: “If you’ve just had a mouthful of popcorn, look away now.”)
Sporadically, the old silliness and joy poke through. Cleese is tickled to have had a lemur named after him, and his curiosity is reawakened by a Buddhist temple. (The most illuminating aspect is archival: footage of the comic’s 1991 sitdown with the Dalai Lama.) But sustained inner peace seems beyond him, and even his more jocular asides have an ungenerous edge. The Palin-razzing sounds far more sour than fond; on hearing of one ex-wife’s passing, Cleese quips “it was the wrong one”.
Those wishing to swerve another Spinal Tap 2-level disappointment would do better sticking with their Fawlty boxsets, but this bathetic endeavour proves unintentionally revealing in one respect. This Cleese – still front-facing, but fragile and frazzled – is seen to inhabit a strange limbo that maps with the recent spate of texts chronicling Ozzy Osbourne’s final months. Can absolutely no-one now afford a long, happy and restful retirement? Is it capitalism or pure showbusiness compulsion ushering our erstwhile heroes towards the grave?
John Cleese Packs It In is now showing in selected cinemas.
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