‘Mad’ John Cleese drags up bad reviews for Python and Fawlty

Former Monty Python actor John Cleese (left) has joined the Spectator as a contributing editor and used his first column to tell readers of the lousy reviews he used to receive in the weekly for Monty Python and Fawlty Towers. What he does not reveal, however, is that the rudest ones were by Richard Ingrams (right), the former Private Eye editor who went on to become the Spectator's acerbic TV critic when Ian Hislop replaced him at the Eye.

Ingrams is bemused. "I think it's slightly odd that he didn't say who wrote these things, especially as he tried to retaliate by putting a character called Ingrams in Fawlty Towers," he tells the London Evening Standard. "Ingrams is the man who blows up an inflatable woman [in Fawlty Towers]. I think there may also have been a parrot called Ingrams."

Ingrams admits he never liked either of Cleese's hit shows. "I think it was because they were always shouting. I thought they were quite clever but they never made me laugh."

As to Cleese's decision to drag up old history, he says: "Fancy him keeping all that stuff. It's more than 30 years ago." He says he always thought Cleese was a bit mad. "That's what I detected at the time, a sort of madness which has now shown itself again."

The Spectator's editor, Matthew d'Ancona, told the Standard it was Cleese's decision not to mention Ingrams's name. "I guess the point he was making was that the Spectator as an institution has been consistently mean to him - hence the extreme step of having to join it!" ·