3.5 ⭐'s

I can only recommend the audio version of this book as Cleese narrates his life story and he's simply wonderful. Also there are sound bytes of various skits through the years that had me laughing out loud at my desk

I bought So, Anyway... by John Cleese on a whim. It was an Audible deal of the day. Why not? I like John Cleese's work. I like Monty Python. I like comedy. It was a bargain price.It was much better than I was expecting. An absolute delight. John focuses on his early life through to the first Monty Python programmes, with a final chapter on the Monty Python reunion shows at the O2 Arena in 2014. Reading about these shows sent me off to YouTube to watch some of the show and I recommend you do the

Let me get this out of the way - I am a huge Python fan and will read or watch pretty much anything to do with them. I do, however, find Cleese to be a bit abrasive and sneery at times, so I was unsure as to whether or not I'd enjoy reading this book. Well, I must say that I found myself pleasantly surprised. I love it when you can really hear an author's voice coming through the text, and this book makes you feel that Cleese is in the same room, reading it aloud to you. True, for Python nerds s...

So anyway, the first thing I ever saw John Cleese in was Fawlty Towers or A Fish Called Wanda. Can’t remember which, but there it is. I love MP though, and all that. It makes me laugh, Hell’s Grannies and all. A Fish Called Wanda is absolutely friggin awesome, and it’s a shame Fierce Creatures doesn’t get more respect. So anyway, that is why my friend gave me this book for Christmas. Which is funny because I almost gave it to him? I ended up giving him Alan Cumming’s instead, something my frien

A few months ago my daughter & I were fortunate enough to spend an evening at the theatre (remember those days ?!) listening to comedy legend John Cleese talk about his life. Every story he told was amusing & fascinating & I could have listened to him for days. So, this looked like a natural follow up to seeing him on stage.Cleese takes us through his early days at school & university as well as moving house endless times....although his family always seemed to end up living back in Weston-super...

www.melissa413readsalot.blogspot.comI love reading memoirs, especially of different BBC actors I enjoy. John Cleese did a great job of writing this book. Some of the books I have read just talk about their lives in film, plays, etc., but in this book JC actually writes about his childhood. I would never have known he was bullied when he was younger. They thought he was a sissy, among other things. And he was tall at a very young age! At some point when he got a little older the bullying finally

This book was like a sandwich made from really good bread but nothing else. It was highly entertaining, but absolutely incomplete. It was a fascinating and amusing insight into John Cleese's childhood and early career, but then simply and abruptly stops short. He gives detailed accounts of every production that he ever did prior to the Pythons, including transcripts of many sketches but once he arrives at his Python years, he stops so suddenly that you begin to search the cover for something abo...

I received an advance copy of this autobiography from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.This is a very generous and unexpected autobiography. I say that because most books of these types merely retell the scandals, bask in the highlights, and dish the dirt on the nasty habits of famous people. Well, we all love that and if we are being honest, that is why we paid the price of admission.Not so this time. While Mr. Cleese does tell us what he really thinks of some of the famous, and not s...

R handed me the package with a wry smile and an apologetic twist of the mouth. "I know it's not your usual style Mum. But it's not the run-of-the-mill celebrity memoir, I'm sure...." Celebrity memoir!?!?!? Sheesh. But then I opened it. Ha! The best presents are the ones you never knew you wanted.For yes, I have long nurtured a secret, what shall I say? idolization esteem? fondness? for Mr Cleese. For one thing he makes me laugh, quite helplessly and uncontrollably, and for another he dreamt

I expected to hate this one based on some of the reviews, but the bitterness -- which, let's face it, is a trait he's long been known for -- really is nowhere near as pervasive as some have made it sound. I think what is throwing some is that the book is almost exclusively about his childhood and university/very early career experiences, and he writes it not as a comedy book but as a serious memoir, so it's not going to read like a Python sketch.He is, unsurprisingly, a wonderful writer, but in

I loved John Cleese’ writing style. I felt as though I was sat listening to him. I could virtually hear him reading out loud to me. I didn’t know a great deal about John Cleese before reading this- but thought he would be a really interesting character and love to discover autobiographies like this.I liked the bit about his father going out to India after the war years and how this shaped his life.Cleese was part of the real comedy years- along with lots of the comedy greats and it was lovely to...

The narration to this book was *on point*, I laughed through the whole book. I figured I would like it since every time I've seen this guy in interviews he always seems well spoken and interesting. I learned a TON about this guy, and he's unbelievably endearing. He talked about his childhood and it was just so... mature how he looked at his mother who was extremly difficult to live with because of SEVERE anxiety issues. He was really able to take a step back and see why she was the way she was,

Avant-Python.Cleese's autobiography is charming and pithy with a few jabs, here and there. He really does start at the beginning and wends his way through to the advent of Monty Python. He gives his view of events and interactions that helped mould his writing and humor from blurry half-formed early memories, parental forces, school days' antics, university wing-stretching, to kissed-by-lady luck career start. Blessings. Cleese is generous in his praise and his long-lived writing partnership wit...