John Cleese Live in Hong Kong shows moments of comic genius from the Monty Python star, but is ultim

I wanted to see if his humour remained relevant and for him to wow me with the wit that has carried his career. I also hoped to see the notoriously “uncancellable” act go where other, less-hardened stand-ups fear to tread.

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Best known for co-founding British comedy troupe Monty Python and for creating the sitcom Fawlty Towers, the British comedian has repeatedly made headlines in recent years for his brazen distaste for political correctness.

Why can he just make fun of white people but not Mexicans and Muslims, he has asked on television. He has taken on both sides of the Brexit debate at home and offended many.

Right off the bat, I’ll say it: the show was underwhelming. The 83-year-old still had stage presence but the show just didn’t have wide enough appeal.

Part of the reason is that this wasn’t an ordinary stand-up routine. There were times when Cleese resorted to showing scenes from his past shows (displayed on two large screens) to generate laughs, which was a pretty lazy format.

Meanwhile, the second half of the show was entirely made up of a Q&A session where Cleese took questions submitted by audience members, which was less about telling jokes than it was just him talking about his life and opinions.

But let’s talk about his stand-up routine, which lacked the originality and freshness I was hoping for.

He opened the show with an explainer as to why he was still going on tour in the first place: to continue paying off the US$20 million in alimony to his third wife, who he divorced in 2008. While it did generate some laughs, he has said it so many times to the press over the years that, like the showing of old clips, it fell flat for me.

Meanwhile, his example of a “woke joke”, told in this day and age, felt contrived and completely went over my head at first. He said: “A man walks into a bar. The bartender asks, ‘Are you racist?’ The man replies, ‘No, I abhor racism in all its forms.’ The bartender says, ‘Me too.’”

The show certainly wasn’t helped by its physical set-up either, as the seating arrangement had no elevation and the echoes from his microphone made what he said unclear in a vast room.

But there were moments when his comedic genius shone. For example, explaining why naughty and edgier jokes about taboo topics, such as sex and religion, are funnier, he made a simple example based on how difficult it was to sell his flat.

“What’s the difference between a condominium and gonorrhoea? You can get rid of gonorrhoea,” he said. “What’s the difference between a condominium and a head cold? You can get rid of a head cold. See, you didn’t laugh at the head cold!”

And his “nice teasing” of the French and the Italians earned him a few laughs – the comedian had explained earlier that when making racist jokes, there was a difference between “nice teasing” (meaning you actually like the person) and “mean teasing”, which is a complete no-no. As such, this joke landed well: “Why do Italian men grow moustaches? To look like their mothers.”

Though not a joke, his rant about former British prime minister Boris Johnson and the ruling Conservative Party in Britain earned whistles and roars from the audience. His dislike for figures such as Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump also got some laughs.

“John Cleese Live in Hong Kong 2023”, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Reviewed: July 10.

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