If the studios paid the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives?

Executives do not on the whole do well with comedy. They can't understand it, they can't read it, they can't spot it.

Having little money to spend was a valuable learning experience. My schooling also shaped my work ethic because while other children were listening to the Goons, I was studying, which enabled me to go to Cambridge University.

You initially become funny as a kid because you're looking for attention and love. Psychologists think that's all to do with mother abandonment. I think John Cleese has his depressions, and Terry Gilliam's the same. All of us together make one completely insane person.

My father, who was a sergeant in the RAF during the Second World War, was killed in a hitchhiking accident while returning home on compassionate leave. As a result, my mother had to get work, as a nurse, and at seven the RAF put me into a boarding school and ex-orphanage called the Royal Wolverhampton School.

Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have.

My first professional job was appearing in a disastrous theatre production of Oh, What a Lovely War in Leicester Rep, shortly after leaving Cambridge.