[imagesource: Tobias Nokolai/Polfoto via AP]

Whatever he does before he shuffles off his mortal coil, John Cleese will forever be loved for his starring role in Monty Python.

The 80-year-old may have retired the silly walk a while back, but he does still enjoy the odd public performance.

Or, in the age of COVID-19, a global live stream in lieu of an actual audience.

On Sunday night, Cleese performed a pay-to-view live stream from Cadogan Hall, in a show titled Why There Is No Hope.

Suffice to say Dominic Cavendish, writing for the Telegraph, was not impressed, giving Cleese a one-star review and calling the whole thing “a wretched sight of a national treasure”.

As a huge Monty Python fan, it has been disheartening to watch Cleese back Brexit and spout some rather xenophobic nonsense on Twitter, but let’s just stick with the review of his show for now:

[His performance] seemed calculated to demonstrate, over a tedious hour, that Cleese has become the very thing, humourless and earnest, that he once made a universal laughing stock…

…aside from a few welcome quips at his own expense (he likened Cadogan Hall’s surreally vacant auditorium to “the Annual General Meeting of the Apathy Society”) – the national treasure decided to bore for Britain…

Cleese’s comedy legacy is assured, but I’d rather submit to the Spanish Inquisition than watch his wretched disquisition again.

So that’s a no from the Telegraph.

The Guardian was a little nicer, granting the performance a three-star review, as did The Times, although they did get a little dig in:

“John Cleese at his funniest” reads the tag at the top of the screen of this comedy lecture, which was livestreamed from an almost empty Cadogan Hall — for obvious health and safety reasons — in London on Sunday night.

At the age of 80, Cleese is long past the point of false modesty, but surely even he would agree that this was an optimistic claim.

Given that watching the show will cost you a cool $20 or thereabouts, it may not be worth the bother.

We could all use a little light entertainment, so let’s finish with one of the greatest sketches of all time:

[sources:telegraph&thetimes]