Comedian John Cleese vows his new show will take on ‘censored’ topics: ‘Be prepared to be shocked’

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John Cleese says wokeness is impacting comedy, creativity

The entertainment icon discusses the current state of comedy with Fox News Digital.

Comedian and actor John Cleese of Monty Python fame announced on Monday he is joining what he called "a free speech channel" to launch a show that touches "important information that gets censored."

Cleese and presenter Andrew Doyle are going to launch a new show on GB News, a U.K. news channel, that will take on cancel culture, woke politics, and how they impact modern politics.

He spoke on BBC Radio 4's Today program and told the host about the impending move.

"I don't know much about modern television because I'd pretty much given up on it - I mean English television," he noted. "Then I met one or two of the people concerned and I had a dinner with them and liked them very much. People say it's a right-wing channel; it's a free speech channel."

John Cleese pose for the 23rd annual German Comedy Awards at Studio in Koeln Muehlheim on October 2, 2019 in Cologne, Germany.  (TF-Images/Getty Images)

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When asked how much of a threat woke ideology presents to culture, Cleese responded, "Well, in America, worse." He went on to say the "interesting thing" is "the way that the woke people conduct their campaign is, I thought, not very honest," citing an activist who admitted she has deliberately avoided public debate. Cleese warned "that is not the liberal democratic way of doing it."

Cleese described himself as an "old-fashioned liberal," suggesting a key component of that ideology is acknowledging the "advantages and disadvantages" of various policies. 

When asked if he thought the Monty Python comedy show could be made today, Cleese said, "The guy who was in charge of Light entertainment about 4 years ago said he wouldn't commission it now - because it's six white people, five of whom went to Oxford."

He also said the new show would be an opportunity to share unfamiliar ideas with a new audience. "The nice thing about talking to the GB News audience is that they may not be used to hearing the sort of things I'll be saying," he said.

Monty Python And The Holy Grail, lobbycard, rear from left: Eric Idle, Michael Palin, center from left: John Cleese, Terry Jones (helmet), Graham Chapman as King Arthur (front), 1975. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

He slammed the BBC by comparison.

"The BBC have not come to me and said, 'Would you like to have some one-hour shows?' and if they did, I would say, 'Not on your nelly!' I wouldn't get five minutes into the first show before I'd been cancelled or censored," he said.

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In response to Twitter reaction to his BBC Radio interview about the new show, Cleese wrote, "It's content. There's a massive [amount] of important information that gets censored, both in TV and in the press. In my new show, I'll be talking about a lot of it. You should be prepared to be shocked."

Cleese has been butting heads with cancel culture and woke dogmatism for some time.

He served as a keynote speaker at the FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas in July, where he noted, "You can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where you're not checking everything you say critically before you move on."

He lamented that now, instead of creating in an atmosphere of freedom, aspiring entertainers have to wrestle with the "death" of creativity.

"Monty Python" star John Cleese sat down with Fox News Digital following his address at FreedomFest on July 15, 2022. (Fox News Digital)

 "A lot of comedians now are sitting there and when they think of something, they say something like, 'Can I get away with it? I don't think so. So-and-so got into trouble, and he said that, oh, she said that.' You see what I mean? And that's the death of creativity," he said at the time. 

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Cleese told Fox Digital, "If you're worried about offending people and constantly thinking of that, you are not going to be very creative. So I think it has a disastrous effect."

Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn and Kristen Altus contributed to this report.