John Cleese waiting to begin when Cleese's offer arrived. Palin agreed to work with Cleese and Chapman in the meantime, bringing with him Gilliam, Jones, and Idle. "Monty Python's Flying Circus" ran for four seasons from October 1969 to December 1974 on BBC Television, though Cleese quit the show after the third. Cleese's two primary characterisations were as a sophisticated and a stressed-out loony. He portrayed the former as a series of announcers, TV show hosts, and government officials (for example, "The Ministry of Silly Walks"). The latter is perhaps best represented in the "Cheese Shop" and by Cleese's Mr Praline character,
John Cleese to See Me Before I Die tour", he visited Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria and finished in Vancouver, performing to mostly sold-out venues. Cleese returned to the stage in Dubai in November 2013, where he performed to a sold-out theatre. Cleese was interviewed and appears as himself in filmmaker Gracie Otto's 2013 documentary film "The Last Impresario", about Cleese's longtime friend and colleague Michael White. White produced "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and Cleese's pre-Python comedy production "Cambridge Circus". At a comic press conference in November 2013, Cleese and other surviving members of the Monty Python comedy group