What’s your favourite city?
Istanbul comes fairly high because you’ve got two continents mixing there. And it’s an old city. It hasn’t been ruined in the sense that there are still lots of back streets, small businesses and engaging places. And it’s by the Bosphorus. Also, there’s something about New York that’s like Machu Picchu – there’s nothing like it in the world, at least visually.
What memories do you have from your childhood holidays?
The ocean. We called the North Sea “the ocean”. We lived in Sheffield, which feels like right in the middle of industrial England, so to actually see the sea itself was absolutely amazing. My father was from Norfolk, so for about 10 years we went to Sheringham on the Norfolk coast. That was a great excitement. The air was salty and you had food from the sea. It was so utterly different to Sheffield. Norfolk became our exotic world.
Sightseeing or sunlounger?
I used to sunbathe when I was younger because one’s marketability depended on having a bit of a tan. When the Python team were in Barbados to work on the Life of Brian script, we would sit by the sea and it was absolutely essential to get as much of your body in the sun as possible. Now I’m completely the opposite. I realised I’d actually rather walk around and see things – or even sit in the shade and read – than stretching oneself out and being burned.
Describe a holiday disaster
We went to Torquay in 1978, and the hotel where we stayed was called Gleneagles – very, very different from the hotel in Scotland. We were treated so badly by such a rude man. We had to start filming the next day at 7.30am so we asked for breakfast at 7am. The man said, ‘Seven o’clock?… Seven o’clock! Who’s gonna be able to get you breakfast at seven o’clock?’ That was where John Cleese based Fawlty Towers on. Myself and Graham Chapman and Terry Jones left the hotel after the first night.
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