The Pythons would almost certainly be lambasted today as the epitome of white male privilege. “I can’t really address what it’s like to be young and think differently,” Idle says, “except to say that being old is like being a ghost in somebody else’s life. Almost everything you do feels like it’s from a different world.” He thinks women are “often funnier” than men, he adds. He was responsible in his presidency of Footlights in 1964-65 for opening up the club to both sexes, 20 years before his college, Pembroke, even admitted females to study.

Idle moved to Los Angeles more than 30 years ago, although he’d spent a lot of time in the US in the 1970s. Partying and sleeping around had led to the break-up of his first marriage. How did he bring to an end what, in his memoir, he called his “relentless pursuit of women”. He laughs. “I relented. You go, ‘What the f—? I don’t even know this person’s name.’ I had six weeks on the beach in Barbados, and I just changed my life. I stopped eating meat. I stopped the serial shagging and chasing [of] women. I’d become a ‘shagnasty’, as the Beatles would call it.”

That was the cocaine era. “It got everybody. It went into rock ’n’ roll first, and then executives, and the music business and film business, and it sort of confused everybody. It’s not a good drug.” Did he partake? “Of course. It was the Seventies. Did I know what I know now? No.”

He saw later how it affected friends such as Robin Williams. “You can’t be funny on drugs, really… In the 1970s and 1980s, you can only explain some of the films they made by understanding that they’re all on f—ing cocaine. And that’s where the budget went too.”

Idle is no fan of the incumbent US president, with whom he crossed paths long before Trump entered politics. “We met him a few times up in New York, and he was always an a—-le beyond belief. He’s a person you hated instantly. There was no question about it.

“He’s just a vain, mad f—er. They’ve got to get rid of him. I mean, I couldn’t imagine America losing so much prestige in one year. They’ve lost the leadership of the world.

“Every day he says more mad things. He’s not well. He needs locking up.” (Idle might want to watch his words. “I’m English,” he admits. “I’m not American. I don’t have a green card. They can throw me out any time.”)

Unsurprisingly, Idle prefers to look on the bright side. He’s hoping that Spamalot may return to Britain in 2027. Fans of his brilliant Beatles spoof band, the Rutles, will also be delighted to hear that he’s bringing them back next year. “I thought we’d have the 49th anniversary.”