- John Cleese: I've always found it *astonishing* that people could have wiped these shows. I remember hearing years ago that Alan Bennett's series, which was set in NW1 in London, had been wiped *by the BBC*. I was outraged. Didn't they realise that this was special and that people would want to see it in ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty years? How could they be so *stupid*?