John Cleese Is Trying His Hand at Chevy Chase’s Movie Screening Tour Racket
As we’ve mentioned before, this year marks the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And while a full-on Python reunion seems highly unlikely, due to tensions within the surviving members of the group, John Cleese has decided to reunite with himself for a Python-themed tour that won’t involve working with others, line memorization or really any prep work at all.
“Not Dead Yet! John Cleese and the Holy Grail at 50 Tour” will reportedly find Cleese visiting 17 cities throughout the U.S., for a show that will include a screening of the classic film, followed by a Q&A. According to the event listing at New York City’s Town Hall Cleese will “share behind the scenes stories, wit and wisdom — assuming he remembers any of it.”
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But it isn’t exactly cheap. Tickets for the stop in Charlotte, North Carolina range from $69.05 to the VIP price of $288.65. That’s a lot of money for a show that mostly consists of watching a movie that’s like $10 to buy on Blu-ray.
Presumably, this type of tour is appealing to stars because much of the runtime is taken up by the movie. And answering a few post-screening questions isn’t exactly the most onerous job for a performer.
Of course, Cleese isn’t the first star to exploit one of their classic movies for a lucrative tour. The first one that comes to mind is Chevy Chase, who has been taking National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on the road during the holiday season in the past few years
Macaulay Culkin also got in on this trend last year, but at least his Q&As revealed some surprising nuggets of new information, like how he once considered buying the Home Alone mansion and turning into some kind of “movie fun house.”
Arguably, the problem with both Cleese and Chase’s tours is that there’s seemingly no questions that they haven’t already publicly answered about these movies. It may be the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but it’s at least the 49th anniversary of Cleese telling stories about the making of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Obviously, some people will just be happy to see one of their comedy heroes in the flesh, but is there anything he could possibly say about Holy Grail that hasn’t already been said hundreds of times? Not to mention the fact that most of Cleese’s anecdotes about the film’s production are complaints about how much he hated the “miserable experience” because the weather in Scotland was bad and the hotel kept running out of hot water.
Whether or not it’s worth hearing those stories in person for nearly $300 is a matter of opinion.
