So, Anyway... 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. @goodreads

MY REVIEW:

4 STARS 


I 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 stopped when they found out he was pretty funny and one tussle with another kid ended it all.

This book had me cracking up! I soooooo wanted to add an excerpt from the book when he was young in school, but it was such a long one I didn't want to break it up to add it here. I mean it would have been my whole review! Basically it's about him being in class, looking over and seeing one of his classmates..um... doing things to his privates and another boy coming over to watch. I have to tell you that every day I'm worried about having a stroke or heart attack and after reading that and laughing so hard I thought I was going to blow a gasket on top of it all. The way he wrote it from his perspective is so funny, but I'm sure anyone that knows JC, can only imagine how funny that part was.

So the book goes on from when he was a young kid for a good bit and shows tons of pictures throughout the book from a baby to his years in plays and movies.

It is always cool learning things about people you see on tv, in my opinion anyway, and I had no idea he was a teacher and that he was going to be a lawyer before the BBC got hold of him. Just so many things we never know.


I think anyone that is a fan of John Cleese would find this book very interesting. I know I did.

*I would like to thank Blogging For Books for the print edition of this book in exchange for my honest review.*

GOODREADS REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1097394231

AMAZON  LINK TO THE BOOK:

http://www.amazon.com/So-Anyway-John-Cleese/dp/0385348266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443903112&sr=8-1&keywords=so+anyway