DON’T MENTION THE ISLAM: John Cleese versus Britain’s new sacred cows

For generations of American comedy fans, John Cleese has embodied a certain idea of Britain. His long face, angular features, and stiff, vaguely aristocratic bearing suggested the quintessential Englishman: formal, reserved, faintly pompous, easily befuddled, and perpetually irritated by the stupidity of everyone around him.

He rode that comic persona to international fame, first as a member of Monty Python, whose surreal sketches became a cult phenomenon on American public television in the 1970s, then in the troupe’s hit films “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “Life of Brian.” In 1988, he found mainstream Hollywood success with “A Fish Called Wanda,” playing a stuffy English barrister opposite Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline. Back home, he was also Basil Fawlty, the permanently exasperated hotelier of