-How are you, John? -Hi, Seth.
This is my little friend, Seth, and he wanted to meet you.
I hope that's all right. -Oh, my goodness.
And what a delight to meet him.
-What did you call me, a comedy legend?
-I called you a comedy legend.
-No, I've been promoted. I'm a comedy icon now.
-Oh, my goodness. When did that happen?
-It happened last Friday,
which is why everybody doesn't know about it yet.
But I am an icon. -That's fantastic.
I mean, I'm assuming that's like one of those things
where the Queen knights you and there's
different orders of merit, right?
-Well, it's not quite.
It is a small legislative occasion in Parliament
when you get promoted.
The next stage for me is national institution.
What do you, Seth? Are you an icon or a legend, perhaps?
-I think I -- you know, I know I was an "up-and-comer"
for a long time. -[ Laughs ]
-And now, I think the last I've heard, I'm "established."
-Ah, very good.
-Yeah, it's not a bad place to be.
-Now, Seth, you're very important.
Seth, you're very important to me.
-Well, it's a -- you know it --
-Because you're the first writer...
-Well, thank you. -...I've spoken to
about the book.
Because you were, what, you were head writer
on "Saturday Night Live" for how long?
-I've -- probably about six or seven years
I think I held that job. -Amazing!
So, what I said in the book, did you recognize it
or do you have a different process?
-Well, I mean, the one thing I want to talk to you most about
is collaboration. -Ah.
-Because you sort of speak a lot about how
collaboration brought out the best in your creativity.
-Yes, I think so.
If I always wrote with Graham Chapman.
And I felt if I was writing with Graham,
I would usually get somewhere that I wouldn't get on my own,
even if it was a result of a set of misunderstandings.
-You know, I was wondering --
you know, because one of the things I should point out
about this book is you believe that people
do have a creativity unlocked in them.
Because I think a lot of people might just think to themselves,
"I'm not a creative person."
And one of the reasons you point out in the book
is that creativity is not ever really taught
in schools as a skill. -No!
-It's not allowed to develop early on.
-It's kind of amazing that you can go through
a whole good educational career
without anyone ever telling you about creativity.
It's astounding.
But that's just the way we think.
And we accept it without really questioning it.
I mean, I had no idea that I had any creative ability at all
because I got into Cambridge on science.
And it's quite hard to be creative
if you're studying science,
unless you're Stephen Hawking, you know?
-Yeah, you never want to hear that you have
a very creative scientist.
[ Laughter ]
Although, I guess we can take
some creative scientists right now.
I shouldn't say that.
But let me ask this, when did you --
because it was sort of later -- not later,
but you weren't in your adolescence
when you realized that you wanted to be a comedian.
What was the first time like that you wrote comedy?
-Um, I wrote some sketches at Cambridge.
I mean, I did one or two "house entertainments,"
they were called at school,
but it never occurred to me I might finish up.
I came from the lower middle class,
and everybody was either a solicitor,
which is a lawyer that doesn't appear in court,
or they became an accountant, or they ran a shop, you know.
If you're Weston-super-Mare,
you're not going to be a comedian
any more than you're going to be a matador or,
you know, a pope.
It just isn't on the radar screen.
But when I discovered I could make people laugh,
I never thought I'd go into the profession.
But what's so lovely about making people laugh
is that it's a good feeling.
It's a good feeling for you and a good feeling for them, right?
-And did you -- the first time --
because I certainly remember those early times of having
that rush of not just feeling good because they're laughing,
but knowing that they were feeling good as well.
Was that an immediate opiate for you,
the idea of making people laugh? -Yes. Yes.
It's a lovely feeling.
I mean, and I still get it. I went out on the stage
at the Acropolis in Athens last November.
There were 4,000 people stacked up on a stage
that people have been performing on for 2,000 years.
And there's something about being on a stage
in front of an audience or going out, you know,
and doing the opening monologue.
It can be scary, but it's so real.
There you are trying to make people laugh.
-I think the Acropolis -- you definitely have to be
an icon to play the Acropolis. -[ Laughs ]
-They don't -- -I'll have a word
with the House of Commons this year
if I can get you promoted. -Not a lot of --
not a lot of open mic nights at the Acropolis.
[ Laughter ]
-That's funny.
So, listen, when you read the book,
did you agree with what I was saying?
Or do you find that there were bits
that were not what your process was?
-Well, one thing I really agreed with,
it's I think very hard to explain.
And I do want to talk to you about the fact
that you have spent a lot of time studying
the human mind as well,
is the very fact that we can be creative unconsciously.
And -- -Yes.
-'Cause I think that sometimes, you know,
when comedy comes out good, it looks as though
the mind had always constructed it that way.
But you talk about the idea that sometimes you'd hit problems
and all that it would take to solve it
would be a good night's sleep.
-Yeah. And I couldn't figure out
why a problem that I was unable to sort out at 10:00 at night,
and I could wake up the next morning,
make a cup of coffee and sit down,
and the solution,
in 90 seconds I could see what to do,
and I couldn't think what was the problem
the previous evening.
And I realized it was only because my unconscious
was actually -- went on working while I was asleep.
And then I lost a script I was writing with Graham,
and I knew he'd be cross with me.
So I had to rewrite it out by memory
to pretend I hadn't lost it.
And then I found the original,
and the one I had done from memory was better.
It was more concise and clever and tight.
It was a better bit of writing.
But I hadn't been trying to make it better.