Yes to John Cleese and No to Henry Adams

Henry Adams won the Pulitzer Prize
posthumously for his auto-biography
The Education of Henry Adams in 1919.

Well the 15th of the month came and went. I generally write something about the quote of the day from Good Reads and turn it into Author of the Month.  However this month it was a quote from Henry Adams, 19th century historian and grandson and great grandson of the two USA presidents.

I tried to write about him but truthfully just got too bored to continue. Instead I thought I'd tell you about John Cleese at the Theatre Royal last night.  Mr. Cleese has been touring Australia of recent times and he scheduled one program for Hobart. It sold out so fast they were able to convince him to add two more shows that also sold out.

Last night T. and I went to it along with our friend P. and had great fun.  He talked of his childhood and the tales of his mother were quite funny. He actually compared her to Marty Feldman and had photos to match.  The audience roared with laughter as he went through the days of Monty Python, discussing the black humour that abounded within that series.

He also showed a couple of clips from A Fish Called Wanda and told how brave it was at the time that the black humour they employed was quite daring.  In particular he said the killing of the dogs and the eating of the fish.

He discussed how the sample audiences listed those the funniest bits of the movie and also listed them as the most reported complaints.

John Cleese is now 74 years old which is hard to believe. He told us the original name of his father was Cheese but he became so sick and tired of the jokes that went along with the name Cheese he changed the /h/ to /l/ when he signed up for the army in 1917 before World War I.  The name then became Cleese and he didn't need to battle with Cheese anymore.

We were very appreciative that John Cleese came all the way to Tasmania, his first visit here, and a great evening ensued.

It was really good to get out with a bunch of people and laugh our heads off to this very funny man.  We loved his stories, we loved his history and now speaking of history I'm glad I didn't report on Henry Adams, historian. Cleese was much more fun.