"My brain works differently now." Billy Connolly says he will never perform stand up again.

Sir Billy Connolly is on “good drugs” and takes “six pills a day” but the time has come for the comedian to bow out of stand-up comedy forever because of his Parkinson’s disease.

The 77-year-old has been living with the disease publicly since 2013, and has told Sky News his fans won’t see him on stage again.

“The Parkinson’s has made my brain work differently and you need to have a good brain for comedy,” he told the broadcaster.

Connolly last performed in 2017 in a world tour before officially announcing his retirement in 2018. However, he had hoped to perform again in some way.

But in a recent interview with Sky, the veteran comedian explained that in comedy “everything you say should have five or six alternatives behind it. You’d say something and then attack it from behind, and let the story make itself up.”

“It’s a madly exciting thing to do. The story is taking place and you don’t know where it’s going. It’s a delight. It’s a privilege to be part of it,” he added.

It is for these reasons however, that Connolly can no longer perform.

His thought processes work differently now.

In 2012, Connolly was voted the UK’s most influential stand up comedian of all time, and said of the award seven years later: “It was lovely and it was lovely being good at it. It was the first thing I was ever good at, and I’m delighted and grateful to it.”

In 2018, Connolly's good friend of many decades TV presenter Sir Michael Parkinson told British lifestyle show Saturday Morning with James Martin about a recent - at the time - encounter with his old friend.

The comedian has been on Parkinson's show several times throughout their friendship and yet on this occasion Connolly didn't recognise him.

"The sadness of Billy now is that wonderful brain is dulled," Parkinson told the show.

"I saw him recently, he's now living in America, and it was very sad because I was presenting him with a prize at an award ceremony."

Parkinson said their encounter was a bit stunted, because he wasn't sure whether Connolly recognised him.

"We had an awkward dinner together because I wasn't quite sure if he knew who I was or not.

"But we were walking out after the presentation to go down and have our picture taken and he turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders.

"He said to me, 'How long have we known each other?'"

The 84-year-old said that was a tough moment.

"To know someone as long as I knew and loved Billy, it was an awful thing to contemplate, that that had been taken from him."

In his most recent interview Connelly admits that he does "get upset" with his disease "because certain things go wrong, your brain goes adrift and affects your body, and so you walk differently, you walk like a drunk man sometimes. And you're frightened you'll be judged on it. And you shake sometimes."

According to Parkinson's Australia, there is currently no cure for the long term degenerative disorder.

Parkinson's affects the brain and common symptoms include involuntary shaking, slow movements and stiff muscles. People with Parkinson's will also suffer from memory loss and balance issues.

In 2017, Connolly was knighted for his work as a comedian and his recent efforts to raise awareness about Parkinson's Disease.

“When I’m in front of people and performing, I don’t give it much attention," he said at the time.

“And I perform despite it. That’s why I put on the song A Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On — just to stick two fingers up to it.

“There’s a whole lot of shaking going on. It’s kind of weird, this instability,” he said.

“The only time it stops is when I’m in bed and then I can’t roll over. I’m like a big log.

“It’s the first thing I think about in the morning because getting out of bed is quite hard.”

Despite this, the comedian doesn't want to be the "poster boy for Parkinson's".

"Some people go on the internet and research it and they email me and say 'I have discovered this about Parkinson's'. I'm 'f*** off, talk about something else'," he told the Mirror in 2017.

Connelly now works as an artist and says of his disease:

"I'm always being asked to go to Parkinson's things and spend time with Parkinson's people, having lunch or something like that. And I don't approve of it.

"I don't think you should let Parkinson's define you and all your pals be Parkinson's people. I don't think it's particularly good for you. So I don't do it," he told Sky.

Feature image: Getty.