Saturday 9th October

There are a few things you notice about Terry Jones when you first clap eyes on him in the flesh. He’s much thinner than you’d think by watching his television programmes, perhaps a little shorter, extremely fidgety but every bit as ebullient as you could imagine. If all of us slow down with age, then I hate to think what he must have been like to deal with as a teenager!

There is a sharp intake of breath and a collective raised eyebrow around the room when our presenter explains he bumped into Terry Jones when he was looking for a Garth Brooks CD in a Soho record store. Surely not? All is revealed later on when it’s explained he has been asked to direct a new version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with music by the country and western singer. Phew, that was a close call, as I try to erase images from my mind of him line-dancing in cowboy boots....

Wearing a deep blue shirt flirtily unbuttoned at the top, blue trousers with a wrist-watch wrapped around the belt loop and black loafers with beige socks he will spend much of the next hour fidgeting with, he holds court on any aspect of his career the audience at the Raindance Film Festival cares to ask. We have just seen ‘The Wind in the Willows’, the last feature film he directed and a movie that Disney – as he often points out – wanted to shove on to video as soon as possible. The fans learn that “nothing much happens until Toad turns up” in the original books, while Eric Idle’s incarnation of Ratty had started out as “his usual Cheeky Chappie voice, which is what he does when he’s nervous.” Someone points out it turned into a Terry Thomas homage, which he laughs loudly at and agrees. Harry Enfield spent the day dressed up as Toad only for the director to nab the plum role for himself with undisguised glee and the dog food factory was originally not going to be blown up at the end.

As gracious a guest as you could ask for, Jones would scoff at those stars who turn up to interviews with a list of no-go subjects, wanting only to plug their latest project ad infinitum. He enthusiastically answers questions on ‘Personal Services’ (missing Cynthia Payne’s wrap party because he had too much work on, which was handy as the house was raided by police that evening), his political articles and why polemic doesn’t necessarily mix with the movie-making process, the importance of humour to make points about even the most tragic of situations and of course that comedy troupe with the unusual name. You’d think all this would make him the perfect person to interview, but one began to feel slightly sorry for the Film Festival representative who desperately tried to stop Terry veering off into uncharted territories that had precious little to do with the original question. All he could do was trust him to burrow his way through to anecdote gold, which he very often did after a slight scuffle with his own wandering memory.

Watching Terry Jones talk about any subject is an engrossing experience, the kind you could liken to sitting in the school room with your favourite teacher. His enthusiasm is infectious and everyone traipses out of the room liking him a little bit more.