Fawlty star gets lifetime achievement award

John Cleese  is to receive the Rose d’Or Award for lifetime achievement at the annual international TV awards.

He will collect the accolade in Berlin on September 13, and said: 'I am delighted by this chance to annoy Terry Gilliam and I’m also very humbled by the offer of an all-expenses-paid holiday in Berlin.'

  Jean Philip De Tender, the media director of the European  Broadcasting Union which organises the awards, praised Cleese’s  contribution to the industry.

He said: 'No one is more deserving of the Rose d’Or Lifetime Achievement award than John Cleese. He has been making audiences around the world laugh for 50 years and his writing and instantly recognisable performances have contributed to some of the best and funniest entertainment on television and in film.'

Radio 4's Paddy O’Connell, who will host the awards, added: 'John Cleese helped invent TV entertainment – but has never forgotten the producers who put him on the screen.  He knows the business inside out as writer, actor and performer.  

'He’s a rare public figure in the English-speaking world for learning German as a young man and told Der Spiegel he only wished it was his first language.  For these reasons and thousands more, including a dead parrot, he’s the perfect fit to pick up the Rose d’Or Lifetime Achievement award in Berlin.'

This year’s  Rose d’Or Award for best sitcom will definitely be won by a British comedy, as UK programmes swept the nominees, thanks to BC Two’s Episodes and Mum, and Channel 4’s Raised by Wolves.

Meanwhile, Inside No. 9 has been shortlisted in the separate comedy category alongside Finland’s Pyjama Party and German’s Tatortreiniger, about a specialist who cleans up crime scenes.

And in two Radio 4 shows are up for the radio comedy honour – last year won by Radio 4 Extra’s Newsjack.

Paul Sinha’s History Revision and The Celebrity Voicemail Show, starring Kayvan Novak are up against Charles is a Hell of a King, from the Czech Republic.

Meanwhile, the John Lloyd-hosted Museum of Curiosity has been shortlisted for best talk show against Finnish and Swedish programmes.

Britain has won the sitcom category every year since it was established in 2004, thanks to Catastrophe (2015), Toast Of London (2014), Spy (2013), Friday Night Dinner (2012), The Inbetweeners (2010), My Family (2009), The IT Crowd (2008), Not Going Out (2007), Extras (2006), Nighty Night (2005), Peep Show (2004). There were no Rose d’Ors in 2011.

Published: 16 Aug 2016