When John Cleese looks back on his life in the first volume of his memoir, So, Anyway…, he doesn’t say that the happiest time in his life was starring in an immensely popular sit-com with his then-wife. It’s not working on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, or being in a Bond film, or performing comedy on the road in New Zealand or any of that. It was teaching for two years, before going to Cambridge. In a talk with fellow Python Eric Idle he explains that the reason for that is because “it was so wonderfully unstressful.” This would change rather quickly once Cleese went to university where he would become involved with Cambridge’s comedy revue group, where he would meet Graham Chapman. His final show with the group would then go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which would then lead to a run at the West End under the name Cambridge Circus, which would then lead to a radio show, then a TV show [ . . . ]

Source: John Cleese’s Early Days on ‘I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again’ – Splitsider