L'hôtel en folie (1975) took the essential ingredients of classic farce - at its most extreme in the dead body episode - and blended them with the key element of all great British sitcoms: a lead character who's class-obsessed and trapped by his situation. Mainwaring, Steptoe, even Brent... they're all trying to escape their class. Basil wants to run an elegant hotel but is constantly let down by his customers. Hilarity ensues.

He [John Cleese] was great with the characters and the lines but needed Connie [Connie Booth] for the construction - she had a feeling for the plot and the arc. John has said that the pressure of working on the show ended the couple's ten-year marriage. Would they have gone on to produce a third series if they had stayed together? Would it have been as funny? Certainly the fact that they didn't helps immeasurably in ensuring its perfection. John himself says the only decent thing he's done since is Un poisson nommé Wanda (1988). Maybe Connie was his muse.

I remember bumping into John Cleese in Soho - he'd just done a voiceover and he wasn't much of a drinker but he pulled me into a pub and told me he was doing a sitcom. I said, "Oh no... another one. Everyone's doing a sitcom these days." He said, "No, we're working hard at it. It'll be all right." Understatement of the year. L'hôtel en folie (1975) is perfect.

We don't retire in my business, the phone stops ringing.

I've got a solid basis of insecurity.