John Cleese is of course famously known for his important role as founding member of Monty Python's Flying Circus. He goes through great lengths to say almost nothing about this episode in his artistic life.

He does say a whole lot more than one would usually like to hear about almost (?) forgotten comedy shows from the 1960s. It helps to gain an understanding of how television worked in the early days, and of course Cleese has every right to discuss whatever he likes in his own autobiography. As a reader, i finally found it a bit too repetitive.

A more positive surprise for me as a teacher was that Cleese writes extensively about school life – the two middle-class schools he went to as a pupil, then university and finally back to school (his own, by the way), as a teacher.

All in all quite witty, but not excessively funny. Unlike the reviewer from the Sunday Telegraph I was not »Left ...wiping away tears«. If you want to learn about the 50s and 60s in (British) education and about the 60s and 70s in (mostly British) TV and show industry, this book is for you. If you want to know all the intimate little details about the team behind the Flyng Circus or want to wipe away tears of laughing, I would rather not recommend reading this autobiography.