John Cleese talks about luck but you wonder how much he really needed.
There's no hiding the comic genius in his touring show, An Evening With John Cleese, which kicked off an Australian tour in Hobart this week.
The perfect timing and caustic comment that made Monty Python and Fawlty Towers among the greatest achievements in comedy are there in spades as the 74-year-old takes a romp through his stellar career.
There's no false modesty from the master, but instead a believable bemusement at how it all came about.
Luck is Cleese's explanation, and a golden era of like-minded British comedians prepared to push the barriers.
He begins with a joke about ageing and, sure enough, the stomach drops well over his belt as he struts the stage in what look like a pair of oversized slippers.
A giant video screen provides photos and some of his most famous clips as the gag-filled history begins with Cleese's "virgin birth" in Weston-super-Mare.
University reviews with the likes of Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie, his early TV shows and a shambolic meeting with the BBC that resulted in Python's first TV series all get a run.
As does the brilliant Black Knight from The Holy Grail which, we learn, was nearly cut by the film's producers.
Basil Fawlty, we have confirmed, was based on a real hotel owner in Torquay but the brilliant TV comedy is really an account of Cleese's childhood home.
The clips from the show are the funniest of the night, and include Cleese's own favourite.
Departed Python member Graham Chapman isn't forgotten ahead of the group's upcoming reunion, but even the tribute is funny.
It's also black, the source of much of Cleese's humour, and he launches an impassioned and convincing explanation of its appeal.
There's an irony in such cutting edge material becoming part of a chat format.
The show comes across as noticeably scripted but it's warm and very funny.
There's little that's personal, though, apart from some tough love for his mother, who lived through the entire 20th century.
"She lived through it all without really noticing any of it," Cleese tells us.
But two-and-a half hours after he started, the audience have what they came for - even a brief silly walk encore.
