Review of the comedian's new GB News show

Since he’s spent most of the recent years bemoaning woke culture, John Cleese finds a natural home at GB News, even if you might hope he has some reservations about becoming a bedfellow of the likes of Lee Anderson, Dan Wootton, Darren Grimes and, soon, Boris Johnson.

His other endlessly repeated bugbear is how television executives these days are meddling and way too timid, not trusting the talent. He presumably misses the days when the suits doled out big commissions to Oxbridge types with only the vaguest idea what they wanted to do and assuming they’ll probably be OK, the way Monty Python got ordered.

So GB News lured him with the promise of no editorial interference. And Dinosaur Hour, the show he could make with all that creative freedom? Well, it’s just OK. Though by the channel’s normal standards, that’s a massive step up.

It also has higher production values than the usual shot-a-Samsung look of its output. It’s filmed in castle-cum-cafe amid nuns and bowler-hatted businessman, waited upon by comedian and GB News regular Lewis Schaffer – a set trying a bit too hard to be quirky, perhaps, but setting it aside from the normal programming.

Executive produced by comic and GB News regular Andrew Doyle, episode one was a platform for another of Cleese’s perennial bugbears: his long-running campaign against the British press. ‘Newspapers have basically become propaganda sheets,’ he concluded. Which, given where he now works, is a bit rich.

Talking about truth and impartiality on GB News is an irony Cleese would surely have pounced on when he was more a comedian and less a professional grouch. 

When the topic of Ofcom’s investigations in GB News are briefly raised, he defends his new employers by screeching: ‘Free speech!’ Could that defence not be afforded to newspapers, too?

Dinosaur Hour certainly does not claim to be comedic, which is a good job given Cleese’s opening line is to promise that the show won’t focus on trivia like ‘the latest trans person’s bicycle accident’, showing his petty reactionary side in lieu of wit.

And the topic of the day was introduced with an awkward, sluggish sketch of sorts, showing repeated surveys that says the British printed press is the least trusted in Europe in what was intended as a slightly amusing way, with the 84-year-old hammily acting up his shock and disappointment at the results. Perhaps it’s best he sticks to being a commentator.

His take-down of the press is pretty one-sided itself, even though no one’s ever going to be rooting for the tabloids. But much of this show seems like raking over old (if very valid) grievances, and it might have been germane to hear someone make the opposing point that the collapse of the News Of The World, countless hacking settlements, increasing privacy protections being made in the courts and the Leveson inquiry have changed Fleet Street culture.

Cleese is a prominent supporter of lobby group Hacked Off, and many guests here were drawn from their ranks. A key interviewee was Steve Barnett, a professor of communications who happens to be on the campaign’s board – but that fact was conveniently omitted. Another board member, Jacqui Hames, was explicitly interviewed in her role with the group.

Danno Hanks, a dubious private investigator employed by the press but now gone straight, cheerily posed for pictures dining with Cleese and fellow Hacked Off cheerleader Hugh Grant after giving evidence in the Prince Harry hacking case earlier this year. Although whatever his links, his testimony here gave insight into the underhand tactics tabloids used at their worst.

Later, Chris Tarrant told how he came to distrust even some of his closet friends, thinking they had leaked information actually obtained by phone hacking. Even more sympathetic was the powerful and heartbreaking testimony of Danielle Hindley about the impact a Mail on Sunday report falsely accusing her of being a rogue beautician had on her life.

She won a ruling from regulator Ipso and, later, a libel victory – which came as small succour compared the impact the original story had on her life. Her case is one of those that makes the viewer think ‘something must be done’… but any deeper discussion about what regulation might look like that wouldn’t also stop journalists from exposing genuine dodgy operators would have to wait for another day.

Despite his obvious predetermined stance on the topic, Cleese is a reasonable enough interviewer – no Andrew Neil, but he gives his subjects tell the stories he wants them to tell. His interjections are primarily of loud, bitter laugh at turns of events he finds darkly preposterous. 

The star signing and sense of professionalism are likely to draw more viewers to the perpetually in-crisis GB News, at least for this hour. But Dinosaur Hour doesn’t seem surprising enough to be a lasting appointment-to-view proposition.

Review date: 29 Oct 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett