The brain needs humour | Iain McGilchrist and John Cleese on neuroscience and creativity

Part 4 of an exclusive How To Academy talk.

Live on stage, John Cleese and Dr Iain McGilchrist come together to explore the place of imagination in our lives and culture, drawing both comedy, neuroscience, philosophy, and creativity - in an exclusive How To Academy conversation.

John Cleese co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life. In the mid-1970s, Cleese co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films, two Harry Potter films, and the last three Shrek films. On YouTube, his appearances on The Graham Norton Show (with Lee Mack and Taylor Swift), on SCR2 (with Bill Burr, Jerry Seinfeld and Ricky Gervais), MetaMeet, BritBox (Policewomen sketch), RadioCentre (with Matthew Wright on blacklisting himself from Cambridge University), Byline TV, The Nightly Show, Robert Grimsby, Late night with Seth Meyers, Real Time with Bill Maher, LiveTalks LA, BBC Newsnight, Rebel Wisdom (on philosophy, spirituality and political correctness), Team CoCo Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Tom Tom Foundation – have amassed tens of millions of views combined.

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a former Clinical Director of the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. His previous book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World reached international recognition and acclaim and has placed him as one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of our time. His new book is The Matter With Things. On YouTube, his appearances on RSA (on the Divided Brain), Perspectiva (with Jordan Peterson), Jordan B Peterson (on a Brain divided and The master and his emissary), Tom Bilyeu (Everything you know about the brain is wrong), Russell Brand (Left vs Right – is your brain controlled by corrupt systems), Sam Harris (the divided mind), The Weekend University (Matter and Consciousness), Theories of everything with Curt Jaimungal (on Existence, being, the limits of reason and language), Rebel Wisdom (on certainty and flow), Awakening with Russell (why do we all perceive reality differently?) and Ralston College (The coincidence of opposites) - have amassed millions of views combined.

Hannah MacInnes is a broadcaster and journalist. Alongside hosting How To Academy’s live programmes and podcast, she presents a cultural show on Times Radio and interviews on-stage at a number of other major literary events. She is the host of The Klosters Forum Podcast series and has written for the Radio Times, the Evening Standard and TLS. Before going freelance she worked for 8 years at BBC Newsnight, as Planning Editor and as a Producer / Filmmaker.