As he tours Australia speaking about the afterlife

John Cleese is to be the subject of a comedians' roast during his newly announced Australian tour, it has been reported.

The 83-year-old former Python has announced eight dates down under of a new show all about ‘his experiences in the afterlife and what the audience can expect when they get there’.

And according to antipodean website TV Tonight, he will film a roast while in Melbourne to air on the Seven channel there,

The tour show, An Evening With The Late John Cleese, will feature the comic sharing stories and clips from his six decades in comedy.

Cleese has previously spoken seriously about his belief in life after death, saying he wanted to Share his views wider.  

'I've seen enough evidence that something goes on, certainly for some people, after they die,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2020. ‘I would like to do a TV series, trying to get people to open up to the idea of a life after death. Nothing to do with religion at all, purely to do with science, because I think if people feel that something goes on after death, it makes life itself more meaningful.'

His Australian tour kicks off in Launceston on July 24 and ends in Newcastle on August 11; while the roast will reportedly be filmed in Melbourne on July 19.

TV Tonight says the event will be produced by actor Shane Jacobson, who last year oversaw a similar event revolving around Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan. Three years ago Jacobson starred alongside Cleese, Hogan,  Chevy Chase and Olivia Newton John – in her last film role – in The Very Excellent Mr Dundee,

Cleese is also working on a  Fawlty Towers reboot with his daughter Camilla, relocating the action from Torquay to a ‘bijou hotel in the Caribbean’.

The comedian – who has in recent years been railing against the ‘crazy extremes’ of ‘wokeness’ – is performing an ‘audience with…’ show in Guildford’s  G Live venue tonight.

He is also making a show about cancel culture for Channel 4 and last October it was announced that he was to present a show on the self-proclaimed ‘free speech’ channel GB News, to be produced by stand-up Andrew Doyle.

Cleese was this week interviewed by Doyle on the channel, saying he ‘couldn’t stop laughing,’ at the Coronation, adding: ‘All these people in these silly costumes, all taking things so seriously. I thought it was a  Python sketch.’

Cleese was roasted a decade ago to mark his 50 years in showbiz, at a charity event in Mosimann's restaurant in London attended by his Python co-star Michael Palin, ex-Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden and Manuel actor Andrew Sachs.

Published: 12 May 2023