So, Anyway... cover art

So, Anyway...

The Autobiography

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

So, Anyway...

By: John Cleese
Narrated by: John Cleese
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

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 homelife, 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.

©2016 John Cleese (P)2016 Random House Audiobooks
Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Funny Celebrity Entertainment Biography Witty Feel-Good Thought-Provoking Comedy

Listeners also enjoyed...

Rambling Man cover art
No Cunning Plan cover art
High Hopes cover art
Monty Python's Flying Circus cover art
Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection cover art
David Jason: My Life cover art
David Mitchell: Back Story cover art
Project Hail Mary cover art
Small Man in a Book cover art
A Del of a Life cover art
Is It Me? Terry Wogan: An Autobiography cover art
Goon cover art
Only Fools and Stories cover art
Parky: My Autobiography cover art
Inside Comedy cover art
The Way I Heard It cover art
All stars
Most relevant
I delayed reading this due to the astonishingly unkind newspaper reviews.
I suspect Cleese's venom for journalists (particularly those unfortunate enough to have found employment with the daily mail) may have coloured their judgment.
This is a highly entertaining and beautifully read memoir. Looking forward to part 2... be warned that it ends where python starts...

Pythonic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

If you could sum up So, Anyway... in three words, what would they be?

Funny, interesting,

Any additional comments?

I have to admit, I delayed listening to this audio-book, because i thought I wasn't going to enjoy it. Over the years, I've loved most of John Cleese's work, but I had got the impression that he isn't a very likeable person, so was anxious I might not enjoy it. I needn't have worried. It's extremely entertaining, and Cleese comes across as a likeable man, although you wouldn't want to cross him. I loved the way he regularly breaks into laughter as he reads, and I love the fact that he left these corpses in, rather than do a second take. Perhaps he was in a hurry to finish it! I finished this book very quickly, always a good sign.

Much better than I had feared!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I leapt at the chance to hear John Cleese read his own autobiography, although, by the end, I felt I might have enjoyed it more if it had been read by someone else. At times, the text becomes a bit of a rant, or so relentless that I paused the recording to take a good break from it. It could be hard going on occasions.

It's also, in my view, less balanced than some might have expected. There is a very great deal of detail about Cleese's early life, but the story pretty much peters out around the time of Monty Python. His take on the production and recording of, say, Fawlty Towers, would have been good, but it merits hardly a word, as does much from the mid 1980s onwards.

Maybe he has a second volume in mind?

Good, but maybe hard-going at times.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Such a fantastic writer and performer, John Cleese's autobiography is a delight to listen to. I thoroughly enjoyed his narration. Superb.

A great treat!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

A fantastic book.

Autobiography?

Far better. I don't want spoil anything so won't say anymore other than listen to it.

hilariously funny

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews