John Cleese to receive Rose d'Or lifetime achievement award

Monty Python and Fawlty Towers star John Cleese is to receive the Rose d'Or Lifetime Achievement award in Berlin.

The honour recognises those who have made an outstanding contribution to broadcast entertainment throughout their careers.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said "no one is more deserving" of the award than Cleese.

The Rose d'Or awards go to the best online, radio and TV shows from the previous year.

Cleese, who also wrote for Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, joked: "I am delighted by this chance to annoy Terry Gilliam and I'm also very humbled by the offer of an all-expenses-paid holiday in Berlin."

The EBU's Jean Philip De Tender, said: "The EBU believes no one is more deserving of the Rose d'Or Lifetime Achievement award than John Cleese.

"He has been making audiences around the world laugh for 50 years and his writing and instantly recognisable performances have contributed to some of the best and funniest entertainment on television and in film."

Rose d'Or host and BBC broadcaster Paddy O'Connell added: "John Cleese helped invent TV entertainment - but has never forgotten the producers who put him on the screen.

"He knows the business inside out as writer, actor and performer. He's a rare public figure in the English-speaking world for learning German as a young man and told Der Spiegel he only wished it was his first language.

"For these reasons and thousands more, including a dead parrot, he's the perfect fit to pick up the Rose d'Or Lifetime Achievement award in Berlin."

The comic also starred in and co-wrote A Fish Called Wanda and appeared both in the Harry Potter and James Bond films, as well as the BBC programme Frost Over England, which won 1967's Rose d'Or.

Cleese will receive the award next month.

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