John Cleese has admitted he is looking forward to being as dead as the parrot in his much-loved Monty Python sketch.

The comedy legend , 74, also said he would never make another film because the gruelling workload would end up killing him.

Asked if he would write a third movie after A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures, he replied: “No, because it is too much like hard work.

“It is two-and-three-quarter years and I am too old for that process. If I started on it now I would die.

“I have only got five or six years left and I will be gone – I won’t have to worry about ISIS or Ebola, I am looking forward to it.

"Most of the best people are dead – I will be in excellent company having a wonderful time.”

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Speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival to promote his ­autobiography, So, Anyway..., the Fawlty Towers star also admitted he no longer watched comedy on TV.

He said: “The sad thing is, and this is quite sincere, when you have been doing comedy for as long as I do, you really do know most of the jokes.”

And he revealed he and the Python team were never “huge friends”.

John said: “The key to understanding Python now is we have all driven off in completely different directions.

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“Michael [Palin], as you know, makes those travel programmes that I put on any time I can’t sleep.

"Eric Idle is very good at lyrics so he is writing songs. Terry Gilliam is off trying to raise money for one of his plotless ­extravaganzas.

“And Jonesy [Terry] is just insane – he writes children’s books and recently went to Lisbon and directed an opera about vacuum cleaners.”

John said he wrote his autobiography in pencil in Moleskine notebooks over the space of four months.

He went on: “I settled down to write it and it was the most enjoyable thing I’ve done for years.

"A great deal of the time I made myself laugh.”