It's... Monty Python

Terry Gilliam's first feature as a solo director, here gloriously restored, is a riotous tale of monsters, true love and medieval manners.

In his first substantial feature-film role away from the involvement of his Monty Python cohorts, Michael Palin stars as a 19th-century missionary tasked with setting up a mission for fallen prostitutes.

The DNAYS team were assembled for this festive edition featuring a variety of sketches, including a strangely sentimental item with Michael Palin as an unloved music-hall-style singer.

Here we meet Michael Palin’s prototype unhelpful shop assistant (a distinct precursor of many future Python characters), plus the Bonzos ripping up the stage with The Sound of Music.

A more adult tone creeps into some of the sketches, in this second episode of the seminal series.

A previously unreleased and newly restored episode of the classic pre-Python comedy show, featuring some distinctly surreal sketches.

With the series in full flow, the fifth episode showcases some splendid interplay between the team – plus some sumptuous mugging from David Jason.

The series hits full speed with this zippy episode, notable for a genuinely sinister Michael Palin as an invading alien.

Tim Brooke-Taylor steps into Michael Palin's shoes as an 'uninvited' addition to the comedy troupe.

Slick sketches abound in this episode, as Eric Idle sits in and David Jason takes centre stage.

Highlights in this episode include the terrific ‘Art Gallery’ sketch, with a Gumby-esque Terry Jones exhibited as a living art work.

As the series nears its conclusion everybody in the cast seems thoroughly at ease with each other, delivering both slapstick and cerebral sketches with smooth efficiency.

The last show of the first series sees everybody larking about somewhat.

This extended episode is an intriguing mixture of new material and newly shot reprises of sketches from the series.

The very first show, featuring the debut delivery of the immortal linking line: ‘And now for something completely different...'

The first episode made for Thames Television features Terry Gilliam's stunning yuletide animation, The Christmas Card.

The only surviving Series 2 episode features an abundance of sketches that move fast, are neatly shot, slickly written and very amusing indeed.

This incomplete episode features only the show’s opening and first sketch, plus a brief fragment of the lengthy ‘Judge Not’ sketch, with the remainder presented as audio-only or script.

Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie share a sketch, while Marty Feldman's classic 'Bookshop' skit gets its first outing.

Highlights include Tim Brooke-Taylor's one-man battalion, Graham Chapman as a government minister literally falling to pieces and a four-handed ‘Cops in Drag’ sketch.

The first of the missing episodes that survived at Teddington Studios contains an outstanding Cleese/Feldman two-hander, ‘The Wonderful World of the Ant’.

Rediscovered episode that includes the ‘Beekeeper Interview’, with Marty Feldman and Graham Chapman, and ends with a rousing rendition of ‘The Ferret Song’.

An incomplete episode that has been reconstructed with audio and scripts, but which features a video fragments of John Cleese's classic ‘Joke Shop’ sketch.

A completely reconstructed episode sourced from Swedish TV compilations, ABC reels and audio recordings by Ray Frensham.

Notable sketches include the return of Sydney Lotterby and the ‘Deaf Aids’ sketch, in this cherished and once-lost episode.

Containing the ‘The Willetts of Littlehampton’ sketch, which manages to send up both the period melodrama genre and the studio production process itself.

David Frost's upstart protégés bite the hand that feed them, by brutally parodying his talk show style.

The penultimate show, which famously features the original and best rendition of the classic ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch.

The series finale features one of the show’s finest sketches, in which Marty Feldman’s Mr Pest torments John Cleese’s uptight commuter.