JOHN Cleese’s Alimony Tour arrived in Salford for the first of three nights, and if the first night was anything to go by, John will be well pleased.

He began by telling us exactly why he was undertaking the tour-and that’s to earn the 20 million dollars of alimony he has to pay to his ex-wife — all done in his trademark, scathing but humourous way.

John then told us of his upbringing and his parents, and why Weston Super Mare is one of the most boring places onearth.

His career in show-business began almost by accident, and with the use of photos and clips, John outlined his work in The Frost Report, Not The 1948 Show and of course Monty Python.

Speaking fondly of his writing partner of 25 years, he paid homage to Graham Chapman and also spoke fondly of his first wife Connie Booth, with whom he wrote Fawlty Towers.

The clips covered all his major successes, the famous ‘class’ sketch with Ronnies Corbett and Barker, his work with Marty Feldman and his favourite scene from Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

Fawlty Towers was gone into in depth, and there were some clips from that show, as well as John telling us about the hotel and owner on which Fawlty Towers and the character of Basil was based.

The trip through his illustrious career ended with a look at the movie A Fish Called Wanda.

John seemed comfortable on stage and referred to an autocue. He analysed humour and how a comedian works, and this part was very interesting.

His imitation of Stanley Unwin’s ‘Unwinese’ was excellent, and he explained that Michael Palin is so nice that, if he was ever to play Adolf Hitler, we would all end up supporting the Nazi Party.

The time seemed to fly by and it was over all too quickly. The almost full theatre gave John a rousing ovation, and there is definite scope for another show — should he want to.

I know a theatre-full of people would welcome that.

Martin Hutchinson