Power is a State of Mind: Comic Con Yorkshire ‘23

“I’m really excited to be here in… where am I?” Actor Danny Glover looks over at American presenter and Monopoly Events compare SoCalVal. Then, modifying his iconic Lethal Weapon line, he tells the crowd, “I’m not too old for this shit!”

The 76-year-old Predator 2 star is with us – he remembers - here in Yorkshire Events Centre, Harrogate, and is the first panel guest at Comic Con Yorkshire, the first of Monopoly’s productions in the region. He’s returning to the company after also being a headlining guest at For the Love of Sci Fi back in 2019, this time a little slower on his feet, but still full of enthusiasm for his trade.

SoCalVal asks about his background.

“Both my grandparents live to 99 years old.," Glover tells us. "When I did Places in the Heart, (set in the Texan cotton fields of depression era 1930s), it was for my mother. My grandfather said, ‘what you know about picking cotton?!’”

Audience questions unsurprisingly bring up 1987’s Lethal Weapon, that which springboarded Glover into public consciousness.

“’I’m getting too old for this shit’ wasn’t in the original script,” Glover tells us. “On set, director Richard Donner said, ‘show me something.’” And the iconic line was born.

He tells of his early days in local government, and finding community theatre that sparked his love for – and career in – acting.

While the stage panel is happening, there’s a lot more going on. Here’s a tour of the stage show area, signing area, stalls, a gaming area, movie and TV set builds and movie cars.

A Predator cosplay troupe had their own set:

And a cosplay competition resulted in a Gangnam Style dance-off.

The last stage panellist is Monty Python founder John Cleese, with whom I paid for a photo at great expense.

In classic Python style, he opens with an apparent joke about being cast in Ben Hur (didn’t happen) and Harry Potter (a 42-second role), which he describes as “one of the most miserable roles I’ve ever had.” The sound effects man, Cleese claims, “lived in a cave and had no experience with human beings.”

“He asked me, ‘can you look surprised at half speed?’

“I made up for it by working in Bond with Pierce Brosnan. It’s all gone now because they shot it in the Czech Republic, and they aim it at the Asian market.”

At this point an audience member seems to stand up and vacillate slightly.

“Are you alright there?” Cleese asks. “If you don’t like it you can go and kill yourself.”

The guy in question walks off.

Cleese raises his eyebrows. “I’ll be in trouble with the Daily Mail tomorrow.”

(As of yet, he isn’t.)

An audience member begins the Q+A by asking about his viewing habits.

“I like the cricket,” Cleese tells us. “I can’t watch comedy any more. Commissioning Editors (who make the decisions about what goes on air and what doesn’t) know fuck all. They refer to committees; the BBC has become a bureaucracy. In my day, people knew what they were doing. After we did the first episode of Monty Python, 6 out of 8 execs thought it wasn’t funny. When you work with (Ronnie) Barker and (Ronnie) Corbett, you find out what comedy is all about. But without that, you don’t know comedy.”

AQ: How did you come up with the name Monty Python?

“It’s a boring story. It’s inspired by Monty -the WWII Field Marshall. I was going to call it A Fish Called Wanda (A film Cleese later starred in) but I was told to change it.”

The idea for the car-thrashing scene in Fawlty Towers, he tells us, “wasn’t the slightest bit funny. The branch was too rigid. The next branch was too floppy. The third had just the right level of floppiness.”

AQ: Favourite comedy sketch?

JC: The Fish Slapping Dance. I produce the most enormous fish and hit him with it. I don’t know why it’s funny. My favourite Fawlty Towers sketch is The blancmange and the duck.

An audience member claims this to be ‘the highlight of his day.’

“Of your life,” responds Cleese. “You best go home and end it. Write an undertaker sketch.” Cleese then dives off into a monologue about how sex and violence on screen, although still a taboo, makes great comedy (I agree), including a scene where the audience invades the sketch in protest. He brings up A Fish called Wanda, in which Michael Palin kills an old lady’s pet dogs (due to where the event is held, he prefers to call them ‘Lancashire Terriers’), and the Holy Grail Black Knight sketch where Cleese lops the knight’s arms and legs off.

A question brings up voiceover work, which Cleese describes as “so good, because the lines are right there. The Shrek team (Cleese played King Harold in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third) are really good. They listen to ideas.”

An audience member refers to Cleese’s time in the States, during Monty Python’s inception.

“We took Monty Python to WGBH Boston,” Cleese recalls. "The exec thought it was shit; we never heard from him again. It was turned down in New York, Boston, LA. Eventually we found Ron Devillier in Dallas – if he hadn’t have put us there, we’d never have been heard of."

Cleese doesn’t mention this, but with no Monty Python on Stateside TV… there’d be no South Park and probably no Family Guy either.

AQ: What about the planned Fawlty Towers remake? (Radio Times are reporting the BBC won’t be involved.)

JC: People say it won’t be as good. My daughter convinced me to do it completely different. I’ve been thinking about it for a week, but that’s as far as we got. We’ve also got Life of Brian and Fish called Wanda stage plays. There’s a planned programme about lookalikes, but Arnie will be playing his lookalike.

An audience question brings up current events.

JC: I read the news first thing in morning. We (the British) are last for trust in printed media. Out of all the countries. (Statista certainly has us low down at 38%.) We need the introduction of proportional representation. The corruption of Tory party has been incredible. I couldn’t have conceived it 30 years ago. When Piers Morgan says “When are you gonna be funny again? It’s been 30 years,” I said, “When are you going to be honest? It’s been a lifetime.”

AQ: What was the inspiration for Manuel?

JC: A century ago British food was poor because there was an empire to run. We needed food for fuel. Then, in the 60s, we started to get Italian restaurants, where you usually had a 50% chance of getting what you ordered. Not having communication is very funny. If someone plays Hamlet, it doesn’t mean they hate Danes and are suicidal. Just because you portray 1 person as something, doesn’t mean you mean the whole country.

To round off, SoCalVal asks what his advice would be to people.

“If you want to stay active late in life, get yourself involved with a terribly ruinous divorce.”

So that’s why he’s doing these conventions.

A brilliant first instalment of Comic Con Yorkshire.