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.

Subversion is what I do.

I try to not to be a celebrity as much as possible.

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

You could write a joke in the pub at lunchtime and watch it performed on television that evening.

I'm not careful with my money at all these days. I buy people a lot of dinners!

At Cambridge, you have to kiss the vice-chancellor's fingers. But I missed out on that, 'cause I was doing a matinee. I don't want to kiss a strange man's fingers anyway.