John Cleese is joining GB News to host a show that will address cancel culture.

He will present the programme alongside Andrew Doyle, the comedian who already fronts a show called Free Speech Nation on the channel.

Cleese has been vocal about the topic in recent years and has also made a forthcoming Channel 4 documentary called Cancel Me.

He said: ‘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.’

The 82-year-old Fawlty Towers star told Radio 4’s Today programme that he hadn’t heard of the channel when he was approached… ‘and then I met one or two of the people concerned and had dinner with them, and I liked them very much.

‘And what they said was. "People say it’s the right-wing channel – it’s a free speech channel."

‘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 added: ‘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!" Because I wouldn’t get five minutes into the first show before I’d been cancelled or censored.’

Cleese also addressed concerns that GB News is influenced by Russian interests, telling host  Amol Rajan: ‘I’ve been talking a lot about it with Andrew Doyle, and one of the original founders seems to have made some money in Russia but it's no more than that.

‘I'm satisfied at the moment. But the whole point is, is it free speech or not? And after I start the show, we will find out.’

Earlier this year, Cleese told Fox News that comedians no longer had the freedom to be funny, adding: ‘Once you start checking everything, it’s very hard to be very creative. If you’re worried about offending people and constantly thinking about that, you’re not going to be very creative.'