John Cleese hits back at BBC boss who branded Monty Python 'six Oxbridge white blokes'

John Cleese has accused the BBC of “social engineering” after its head of comedy said Monty Python’s white Oxbridge males were out of step with modern television.

Cleese joked that Python’s members met the BBC’s diversity targets because they included a “poof” and “no slave-owners”, and suggested his Ministry of Silly Walks sketch would now be considered “a slur on the handicapped”.

Shane Allen, who runs the BBC’s comedy output, said earlier this week that sketch shows should feature “a diverse range of people who reflect the modern world”, and that times have moved on from Python’s “six Oxbridge white blokes”.

In response, Cleese tweeted: “BBC’s Head of Comedy puts Monty Python’s lack of originality down to a surfeit of education and racist bias. Unfair! We were remarkably diverse FOR OUR TIME. We had three grammar-school boys, one a poof, and [Terry] Gilliam, though not actually black, was a Yank. And NO slave-owners."

“We were never ashamed to reveal the more feminine side of our personalities. And… to demonstrate solidarity with all suffragettes, 91.6% of the people we ridiculed were male (in the old-fashioned sense, that is.”

The late Python member Graham Chapman was gay.

Cleese described Allen as “the latest in a long line who don’t really know what they’re doing,” following the BBC executives who disliked Monty Python in the 1960s.

And he said of Allen: “His real title is ‘Head of Social Engineering’. Which is an excellent enterprise, although not very closely connected to comedy. In fact, it’s almost exactly its polar opposite.”

When a fan posted a clip of Cleese performing the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch, Cleese joked: “No! A Nasty slur on the handicapped! Get your priorities right…”

Cleese said Terry Jones could be considered a “multi-culturist icon” because he had Welsh parentage, and asked why the BBC does not show re-runs of Monty Python’s Flying Circus despite having the terrestrial rights.

The 78-year-old recently appeared in a BBC sitcom, Hold The Sunset. He tweeted: “It’s very white and lower middle class and rather lacking in grammatical mistakes and heavy accents. I’d have guessed [Allen] was more ashamed of it than Monty Python. Still it does have lots of girlies in it.”