Monty Python paid me £20,000 to write, direct and assemble them - the cheapskates! I told them I'd never earned less in a year since leaving Cambridge. The first show sold out in 43 seconds and we ended up performing ten in total. We had no idea there would be such demand.

Filming a pirate film is always good fun, with ships and indecent clothing.

What's brown and sounds like a bell? DUNG!

I don't necessarily know much about comedy, I don't spend a lot of time watching it. Mainly because all my life for about 50 years I've had comedy.

There's animals like us existing and thinking and giving interviews on Australian television.

No day of my life passes without someone saying the words 'Monty Python' to me. It's not bad.

There's no gap between the writer and the performer, which is what I think makes [Monty] Python unique. Five or six people who write Python and five or six who act it. That's what makes it unique.