Miriam Margolyes: What did Harry Potter star say about John Cleese - what does she say in new 2023 book?

John Cleese has been called "poisonous" and "irrelevant" by Miriam Margolyes.

The British-Australian actor and voice artist, 82, commented on working with the comic as a member of Cambridge's prestigious Footlights comedy society in the early 1960s in a recent interview to promote her new book, 'Oh Miriam!: Stories from an Extraordinary Life'.

She recognised that Cleese - who would go on to perform with Monty Python and appear in the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers - "was a brilliant comedian in his day" but claimed that "something has turned" in recent years.

Cleese has grown into an increasingly polarising figure in recent years. He is a staunch critic of what he describes as cancel culture and woke values in the UK media.

Seemingly responding to Cleese's divisive opinions, Margolyes told The Guardian: “Like milk, he’s gone sour. He’s an irrelevance... Cleese is a puny tadpole of a person.”

His interest in debates over freedom of speech first surfaced in 2020 when famous Fawlty Towers episode ‘The Germans’ was briefly pulled from BBC-owned streaming platform UKTV over “racial slurs” and “outdated language”.

Now, Cleese will debut a new show on GB News this month, which - according to the broadcaster - will feature “his choice of guests on a wide range of areas that interest him".

GB News host Andrew Doyle, who will produce the new programme, promised the show would give Cleese “complete creative freedom” and would be “far from predictable”.

In 1962, Cleese and fellow Monty Python member the late Graham Chapman, according to Margolyes, "were poisonous" and would "ignore" her after she received laughs from the audience, which she claimed "crushed" her.

She said: “I think they thought I was too full of myself because, in those days, women were literally not allowed to join the club.”

In addition to her acting career, Miriam Margolyes is known for her outspoken and candid personality, often sharing her opinions on various subjects in interviews and public appearances.

The Guardian also adds that Margolyes criticises both Mick Jagger and Arnold Schwarzenegger in her forthcoming memoir, calling the Terminator star a "very boring man" and the Rolling Stones frontman a "miserable c***."

'Oh Miriam!: Stories from an Extraordinary Life' will be published on Thursday 14 September.