When a reckless teacher screened Life of Brian at his school, the future comedian fell in love with the anarchic pranksters who created it. Then he met them – and even more chaos ensued

Writing about the importance of Monty Python is basically pointless. Citing them as an influence is almost redundant. It’s assumed. In fact, from now on it’s probably more efficient to say that comedy writers should have to explicitly state that they don’t owe a significant debt to Monty Python. And if someone does that, they’ll be emphatically wrong.

This strange group of wildly talented, appropriately disrespectful, hugely imaginative and massively inspirational idiots changed what comedy could be for their generation and for those that followed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Never afraid … the Monty Python team in 1969 – at rear: Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam; front: Terry Jones, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. Photograph: BBC/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

I first discovered Monty Python when I was probably 10 years old, and back then it felt like something I shouldn’t be watching. That was already a pretty big appeal. Then I saw Life of Brian in middle school, when a substitute teacher put it on to keep us quiet on a rainy day. I’m not sure he knew exactly what he was showing us, but I’ve always been hugely grateful for the reckless professional mistake he made that day, because I’ve never forgotten how it made me feel.

I think what I’ve always loved about all of Monty Python’s work is that they’ve never been afraid to get into trouble, and Life of Brian is the perfect distillation of that. There is a famous episode of a BBC talk show from 1979, when John Cleese and Michael Palin were interviewed alongside the Bishop of Southwark and the writer Malcolm Muggeridge, both of whom were furious about the film. Incidentally, the very name “Malcolm Muggeridge” is so stereotypically English, it’s almost racist. It’s the name of someone who should be looking after the owls at Hogwarts. Anyway, for 20 minutes, Muggeridge told them off like a pair of naughty schoolboys, calling what they’d done a “miserable little film”, “a squalid number” and “10th rate”, and said it contained laughs that were “rather easily procured”.

And while everything he said was titanic nonsense, it was that last part that drove me crazy. Because nothing about what Monty Python did was easy – not their TV show, not their albums, and certainly not Life of Brian. It’s fucking hard to write such incredibly smart, incredibly stupid comedy.

I got to interview all the Pythons after a screening in New York a few years ago. It was total, beautiful chaos. The audience seemed to turn up in reverence of them, but you won’t find a group of people less interested in hearing how important they are. So, they took it in turns to try and create mayhem – turning their chairs the wrong way around, walking off stage when they got bored, and sitting with the microphones in their mouths. They treated the evening, each other, and their own legacy terribly, and it felt like a far more meaningful tribute.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Besotted … John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight. Photograph: Chris Buck

That’s why one of the greatest acts of love I’ve seen was the funeral for Graham Chapman, who died of cancer in 1989. It was a de facto roast. They saw him off in the spirit he would have wanted, with no respect whatsoever. Here’s what Cleese said about one of his best friends:

I guess we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only 48, before he’d achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he’d had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say, “Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the free-loading bastard! I hope he fries. And the reason I think I should say this is, he would never forgive me if I didn’t, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf.

With that in mind, I’ll say this to you: Monty Python are a bunch of decaying old men, and they’ll all be dead soon. Their shrivelled testicles will become dust in the wind of history. But people will be laughing hysterically at their work long, long after they’re gone.