The TV show John Lennon hailed as a “masterpiece”
John Lennon was inspired by a variety of artistic forms throughout his career. He may have excelled as a songwriter, but it wasn’t just music which infiltrated his realm of inspiration. Lennon was routinely inspired by novelists, poets and comedians, who all expressed themselves authentically. As well as those observers, Lennon found sincere influence in the growing works now seen on screen.
On multiple occasions, Lennon cited cinematic giants such as Federico Fellini, whose works deeply impacted him. Furthermore, Lennon went out of his way to fund certain cinematic projects that he liked, just like George Harrison had.
The Beatles enjoyed the famous Monty Python sketches, but it was Harrison who formed the production company HandMade Films, which went on to finance the classic Monty Python’s Life of Brian, among other notable projects like Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. Lennon was also influenced by Monty Python and even expressed his desire to be featured in one of their sketches.
What might be surprising to some people is that Lennon even shared that he would have preferred to be a member of the comedy troupe instead of The Beatles. While the Fab Four had their fair share of comedic skits in their movies, Lennon was simply infatuated with what Monty Python were able to do.
“Part of me would sooner have been a comedian. I just don’t have the guts to stand up and do it but I’d love to be in Monty Python rather than the Beatles,” Lennon famously said in an interview when asked about his future aspirations. During that period, Lennon also watched a lot of television shows, and he even named his favourite series ever made.
Lennon’s favourite film of all time was Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo, whose hallucinogenic artistic vision impressed him so much that he directed the manager of the Beatles to provide $1million for Jodorowsky’s future project. However, Lennon’s taste in television is as far as it can get from his love for Fellini and Jodorowsky. Instead, to compound his preference for Monty Python than The Beatles, he would follow the love of John Cleese into another venture.
The music icon’s favourite television show was actually a British sitcom called Fawlty Towers, which he called “the greatest show I’ve seen in years… What a masterpiece! A beautiful thing.” Critics have come to the same conclusion in the years that have followed, with the BFI naming it as the greatest British show in history.
The thigh-slapping music hall slapstick of Fawlty Towers is a natural bedfellow for both Monty Python and Lennon. A fantastic, humorous critique of British sensibilities, Fawlty Towers revolves around the inhabitants of a hotel in a town on the English Riviera. It was actually inspired by Cleese’s own experience with an eccentric hotel owner during his stay in Torquay and therefore has rooted within it the authenticity Lennon so naturally craved.
