Suspicion of sore throat yesterday morning induced temporary wave of panic about my tendency to hoarseness on stage (something from which none of the other Pythons ever seemed to suff er – which of course made it worse), but this morning, tho’ I have a niggly cough, I’m confident my voice will last the day.

A bright, breezy afternoon as I walk along Kensington Gore, to the stage door of the Albert Hall for the recording of Eric and John Du Prez’s Oratorio ‘Not the Messiah’. Such has been the carefully and thoroughly orchestrated hype for the event that I cannot simply walk in and start work. There’s a small pack of fans squeezing around me at the door. One or two genuine fans – many more are dealers – and they are so completely single-minded that they disregard any personal appeal. I think if I had a heart attack and collapsed on the floor, one of them would be trying to get the last autograph before I died.

Backstage are Neil [Innes] and Terry G and TJ and Sanjeev B – who is enormously equable, agreeable and a generally comforting counterpoint to the rumbles of discontent from Pythons who don’t really want to be here. In our shared dressing room Neil, TJ and TG are so constantly on the point of boiling over about the way they’ve been ‘used’ that I have to introduce a swear-box policy, with a pound for every criticism of ‘Not the Messiah’. Neil can’t stop his speechless disbelief that Eric should have inserted a Dylan-style protest song into the show. ‘That’s exactly what I do!’ explodes the gentle Innes.

The performance – which begins at 8 – is also the dress rehearsal and it’s quite a strain waiting for half an hour’s make-up as Mrs Betty Palin and then trying the whole drag outfit on for the first time – ten minutes before doing it. Of course, it all goes well. Mrs Betty Palin – in her long turquoise dress – is greeted with prolonged applause, as is every Python appearance. We’re called back time and time again.

I feel that lovely rush of relief and joy having belted out ‘Lumberjack Song’ with an 82-strong orchestra, 200-strong choir, to a 6,000-strong audience at the Royal Albert Hall on a Friday night! Tom and Will there, but Tom with bad news – Barney, their cat, was run over this afternoon and killed outright. Nothing nasty or squelchy thank goodness, and Archie’s dealt with it quite well. Apparently a delivery man came to the door and Archie greeted him with the words ‘Barney’s dead. He’s in a bag over there. D’you want to see him?’