It is difficult to dissociate Cleese, a graduate of the Cambridge Footlights
comedy revue, from his television work on Monty Python's Flying Circus
(1969-74) and Fawlty Towers (1975, 1979). His comic brilliance in those
series, owing as much to physical routines as to the nuances of dialogue
or character development, makes it difficult to see him without expecting
the hysteria to burst through, a funny walk to take over, or a dead
parrot to be slapped on the table.
Many of his most popular film performances derive from routines - the
Monty Python films or The Secret Policeman's Ball (1980) - but in A
Fish Called Wanda (1988), which he scripted and on which he collaborated
with Charles Crichton,
he showed the potential of his basic persona for more sustained comic
development with a performance that won him a BAFTA Best Actor award.
