The first volume of John Cleese‘s au­to­bi­og­ra­phy takes us through the first 30 years of his life, from his birth in Weston-super-Mare in 1939 to the creation of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in 1969. I learned along the way that his mother was im­pos­si­ble; that the Pythons consider themselves writers first, performers second; that he greatly enjoyed his school years; quite a lot about the various TV and radio shows he worked on before Python; not much about his first marriage to Connie Booth; and that his speech in A Fish Called Wanda about the English been stifled and terrified of em­bar­rass­ment was truly heartfelt.

I look forward to the next volume.