TOAD caught up with the ’70s TV and film icon after he touched down in the UAE for another series of dates of his live An Audience with…
You’re perhaps known, both in Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, for playing frustrated characters. What’s your take on the modern world?
There so much strangeness and madness out there in the world now – much more than there was 20 or 30 years ago. It’s rather hard for comedians to stay ahead of what’s actually happening. There was a story in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago about a burglar who appealed on human rights grounds that being in jail deprived him of his right to a family life – and he got some time out [of prison]. That’s a Python sketch.
As someone who has seen so many comedians perform going back to before the formation of the UAE, who do you think is currently the world’s best living comedian?
I have no idea. But the general feeling out there is that the period we are in today is not a particularly golden era for comedy.
Professionally what would you class as your biggest failure?
Fierce Creatures, because the expectation following the success of A Fish Called Wanda was too high. Fierce Creatures is like most comedies – it has it’s good points and bad, comedy highs and comedy lows. There are some funny scenes in the film, but there are two or three that are not good at all, and when I’m forced to watch them now they slightly embarrass me.
What would you say is your biggest vice?
My addiction to sudoku crosswords is quite bad – I waste a lot of time on that. [And also] physical laziness.
How would you like to be remembered when you’re gone?
I’d like friends and people who knew me to say ‘basically he was a kind guy’. That would make me very pleased.
What would you say is your best acting performance to date?
I would have to say my performance as Petruchio in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, in 1980 (for the BBC Television Shakespeare Series). It raised eyebrows at the time, and then people were a little bit surprised that I had more of a range than they thought.
One of your most memorable portrayals was as Q in the James Bond series. Who do you think is the ultimate James Bond?
I thought Pierce [Brosnan] who I filmed with was great – Pierce or Sean [Connery] would be the choice for me. With Daniel Craig they’ve made the James Bond brand a lot grittier. They don’t bother with the humour that used to be a trademark of the films so much now.
We’ve heard reports that you’ve worked as a scriptwriter for President Obama. Is that true?
It was not true – I offered my services by hosting a couple of [events], and that’s it.
