John Cleese is working on a musical version of his classic comedy A Fish Called Wanda, according to an interview published over the weekend in Britain’s The Daily Telegraph.
Spurned on by the success of Spamalot, for which he waived his right for royalties assuming that the musical adaptation of Monty Python And The Holy Grail wouldn’t be successful, Cleese is collaborating with his daughter Camilla to bring the 1988 comedy to the stage.
We’ve knocked the story into shape. We’re going to try a few lyrics and if it turns out we are no good – which is what I expect – we’ll get a new lyricist in. Right now we’re working on the story and trying to figure out where the songs should go. It’s very early days, though.
Hopefully, Cleese and Cleese will be able to turn out a script that will actually make it to the boards. There’s plenty of farcical material in A Fish Called Wanda that should play well live. And what kind of song do you think Ken the Stutterer, played by Cleese’s Monty Python castmare Michael Palin, would get?
