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Good Question for a Q&A with Cleese and Idle? Any Ideas?
#1
My daughters surprised me with a Ticket including a Backstage 'meet n greet' with John Cleese and Eric Idle as part of their Together Again at Last...For the Very First Time Show. So what do I say? Any ideas? I don't want to say the 'greatest fan' thing ( am not) but Pythonesque humour has got me through some dark days. They hear that a lot I gather.
 Normally, I wouldn't go. I seldom go out now, but I saw Eric Idle 2 years ago and enjoyed his show very much. John Cleese often plays the abusive character and I don't find 'mean' funny anymore. Thoughts anyone???  Huh
"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

Albert Camus
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#2
I've seen some of the old Monty Python skits and find the humour somewhat juvenile. That said, sometimes juvenile nonsense is 'just the thing' to lighten ones mood.

If I didn't have to go a long way and if I didn't have to 'dress up' (I couldn't, I have no 'dress clothes' anymore) I'd probably go just for the memories. Of course, if I could shanghai a couple of the daughters to go with that would enhance the enjoyment, no??
We live by each other and for each other. Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.
-- Helen Keller
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#3
You are SO Lucky!  I am SO JEALOUS!

    I think the best thing to say would be related to your experience with suicide and mental ill-health.  You could open with something like - having received these tickets you were forced to put off your suicide (or mention a spacific method), and you don't put off your suicide for just anyone.  Then ask them how their suicide plans are coming along (many comediens are bi-polar or suffer soul crushing depression so they just may reward you with a whole comedy routine about suicide methods).  Then just ask them about their tour, where they performed last night and their escapades in traveling, what do they like about getting older, how are their kids (I'd stay away from Monty Python references, I think).  You could thank them for me, for teaching me the word "cocksucker" (my mom had all the Monty Python albums) ten years before I knew what it meant, and could not understand why my mother would get so very angry at my sister for saying it to my brother.  You could also thank Eric for his wonderful "Fuck X-mass" song that 8ball shared with us here!
Big Grin

    They love dark humour, are both outspoken atheists and you've got loads of what could make very darkly funny material - hospitalization escapades, medicine follys, therapists, failed attempts!  Even your signiature is a great example of your sense of humour.

Good Luck & Have Fun!
 ____________________________________________________
 
   "You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.
-  Octave Mirbeau

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
- David Foster Wallace

"I wish I was DEAD! ...Well, no I don't. Not really.   I wish everyone ELSE was dead."
- Calvin

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#4
(12-31-2015, 07:45 AM)Sisyphus Wrote: You are SO Lucky!  I am SO JEALOUS!

    I think the best thing to say would be related to your experience with suicide and mental ill-health.  You could open with something like - having received these tickets you were forced to put off your suicide (or mention a spacific method), and you don't put off your suicide for just anyone.  Then ask them how their suicide plans are coming along (many comediens are bi-polar or suffer soul crushing depression so they just may reward you with a whole comedy routine about suicide methods).  Then just ask them about their tour, where they performed last night and their escapades in traveling, what do they like about getting older, how are their kids (I'd stay away from Monty Python references, I think).  You could thank them for me, for teaching me the word "cocksucker" (my mom had all the Monty Python albums) ten years before I knew what it meant, and could not understand why my mother would get so very angry at my sister for saying it to my brother.  You could also thank Eric for his wonderful "Fuck X-mass" song that 8ball shared with us here!
Big Grin

They love dark humour, are both outspoken atheists and you've got loads of what could make very darkly funny material - hospitalization escapades, medicine follys, therapists, failed attempts! Even your signiature is a great example of your sense of humour.

Good Luck & Have Fun!
"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

Albert Camus
Reply
#5
No WAY. I would be so overwhelmed I'd probably pass out and wet myself. But if you can manage to stay lucid, it would be cool if you could ask something hard hitting, dark and controversial, like what Sisyphus mentioned.

I wouldn't have the guts, but if you're brave I agree the topic of suicide/depression & comedy would be GREAT to bring up. So many great comedians have been driven into comedy through hardships and depression: Mel Brooks comes to mind. And of course there's Robin Williams. I bet such a morbidly insightful troupe like Monty Python would have a lot to say.

In any case, as long as you avoid passing out and wetting yourself, I'm sure whatever you say will be just fine. Have a great time (and capture it on cellphone, if they allow it. It's truly a once in a lifetime opportunity)!
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#6
Great idea Nevermore, the fear of pissing yourself in their hallowed company could make for a great joke... something along the lines of having to buy/wear super absorbant Depends (or any other adult nappie popular in the UK) to their show as a precautionary measure.  Then you could tell them you've taken medication that allowed you to come and meet them without vomitting on their shoes, or you could bring them each an adult raincoat - just in case you throw up, etcetera...  They do so love vomit jokes!
 ____________________________________________________
 
   "You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.
-  Octave Mirbeau

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
- David Foster Wallace

"I wish I was DEAD! ...Well, no I don't. Not really.   I wish everyone ELSE was dead."
- Calvin

Reply
#7
(01-08-2016, 06:03 AM)Sisyphus Wrote: Great idea Nevermore, the fear of pissing yourself in their hallowed company could make for a great joke... something along the lines of having to buy/wear super absorbant Depends (or any other adult nappie popular in the UK) to their show as a precautionary measure.  Then you could tell them you've taken medication that allowed you to come and meet them without vomitting on their shoes, or you could bring them each an adult raincoat - just in case you throw up, etcetera...  They do so love vomit jokes!

Omg haha. Well who doesn't love vomit jokes?

Yes indeedy. The success of an interview question rests on how well it "sets up" a good punchline. So opening the door for some nice morbid humor will be a winner, I hope!
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