A.D. White Professor John Cleese returns to Cornell, musings in hand

By Franklin Crawford

Cleese

Comedian/actor and author John Cleese returns to Cornell in his role as A.D. White Professor-at-Large to deliver a public lecture titled "What is Religion? Musings on the Life of Brian," Friday, Oct. 22, at 8 p.m. in Barton Hall. The talk is free and open to the public but tickets are required.

Tickets will be available to Cornell students with IDs starting Tuesday, Oct. 5, and Wednesday, Oct. 6, at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office, the Carol Takton Center and Robert Purcell Community Center. Tickets are limited to three per student, and all seats are general admission. Starting Thursday, Oct. 7, a limited number of tickets for the general public will be available at the Clinton House ticket office, 116 N. Cayuga St., in downtown Ithaca. General public tickets, limited to two per person, also will be available at any of the Cornell outlets listed above. Barton Hall will open at 7 p.m. on the night of the event, and access will be through the building's west entrance (the side facing Statler Hall).

The Oct. 22 lecture marks Cleese's first appearance at Cornell since his six-year professor-at-large appointment was extended in July for an additional two years. His talk, co-sponsored by the Cornell University Program Board and the A.D. White Professors-at-Large program, coincides with Cornell's First-Year Family Weekend. The program will include excerpts from "Life of Brian," Monty Python's 1979 cinematic send-up of organized religion, governmental bureaucracy, political and religious fanaticism and Hollywood biblical blockbusters, leavened with a healthy dose of trademark -- now classic -- Python nonsense.

Cleese received an M.A. in law from Cambridge University in 1963 and served as rector of St. Andrews University in Scotland from 1970 to 1973. In 1972 he launched Video Arts Ltd., a management training film company.

As both writer and performer, he helped to shape the course of modern British comedy but is best known in America for his television and movie appearances with the Monty Python troupe, his "Fawlty Towers" television series and the hit movie "A Fish Called Wanda."

Cleese has co-authored two books with British psychologist Robyn Skinner, titled Families and How to Survive Them (1983) and Life and How to Survive It (1993). His last book, co-authored with philosopher Jacob Needleman, is titled Time and the Soul: Where Has all the Meaningful Time Gone -- and Can We Get it Back? (2003). Cleese has another book, due out in November, titled Superman: True Brit, co-authored with Kim Howard Johnson, writer and Python chronicler.