The veteran comedian doesn’t really know what a YouTube channel is, but he’s gone and launched one anyway.

And now for something completely different: legendary comic John Cleese has launched his own YouTube channel – “whatever that may be”, as he puts it in his introductory clip. “I have a young friend called Andy who does this IT social media rubbish for me,” he says.

In a welcome message, the 76-year-old comedian, renowned for Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, introduces himself as being “famous for complaining about parrots, reciting Russian in the nude, suffering mere flesh wounds, arming James Bond, employing waiters from Barcelona and being divorced, ah… at least three times.”

Cleese has made no secret in the past of his need to earn a crust, calling a 2010 solo tour of the UK The Alimony Tour. He signs off from his first video by saying: “I’m delighted to welcome you to this so I can benefit from the advertising revenue.” Wearing a mask of himself, he says that subscribers to the channel will “be able to watch hour after hour of me ranting about the other Pythons, recounting tales of the good...