Comic Roots

Michael Palin looks back in languor at his meteoric rise to stardom from Sheffield (full address withheld), through Bnghtside and Carbrook Co-operative players, Brasenose Revisited, to Edinburgh's famed Parks and Burials Department, with the help of his Mum, his old geography teacher, Spike Milligan, Terry Jones, the boy next door and D. P. Gumby (full address withheld). But whether the roots of comedy are in nature or nurture is best left to the sociologists to decide...