I will jump on anybody's private plane at the drop of a hat. I'm an old-fashioned lower-middle-class boy.

If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.

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.

Monty Python only became valuable when it was sold to Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in America. They didn't pay much either, but the series has been shown repeatedly, which led to lucrative tapes, CDs and DVDs.

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.

I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune. The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is.

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.