Michael Palin

Terry Jones update

Jones was not expected to talk to the press again - until last week, when his family requested an interview to help promote public awareness of FTD, a condition that affects tens of thousands of people in the UK but which remains a relatively little-known medical problem.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail fell foul of censors

Think of a Monty Python film with blasphemous content, and Life of Brian springs to mind. Yet previously unseen files from the British Board of Film Classification show that the comedy team's earlier offering, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, fell foul of the censors for repeated use of the words 'Jesus Christ!'

Preview - Monty Python: Almost the Truth (Lawyer's Cut)

This documentary series was made back in 2009, but it is still one of my favourites, covering just about everything about Monty Python (at the time - this was still before their final shows at the O2 Arena).

The inside stories behind Monty Python

Extracts from Adrian Besley's new book Monty Python's Flying Circus: Hidden Secrets.

Nobody expected the Spanish Inquistion

Breaking news: Michael Palin was not always Mr Nice. During last night's in-conversation event the comedian-turned-traveller revealed that he once wrote horror stories. But apart from that his halo remains unscathed.

Tracy Ullman on why Monty Python 'p****d her off'

Tracey Ullman said she tore into Michael Palin over Monty Python's all-male line-up when they first met. The actress, 57, said: "Python used to p*** me off when I was young. When I met Michael I said, 'Why did you never have women in the show?' He was so adorable and said, 'I think we were rather frightened of them' - so it was easier for Terry Jones to do it."

The Monty Python's Flying Circus team's first big-screen guffaw is a rerun of some of their famous TV sketches. The anarchic battiness of these early sketches doesn't quite hold up; the later efforts, in which the Pythons harnessed humour into a mock-historical context, were more successful. But it's fun to see Cleese, Palin, Idle and all in the loopy pomp of their youth.

Michael Palin: I wanted to bring curtain down on Python

The Monty Python and travel man declares his love for fellow Python Terry Jones - and his hero, writer and historian Jan Morri.

Never a dull moment in Charles Crichton's lovely Ealing-esque comedy. A gallery of rogues includes barrister Archie (ohn Cleese) - who falls for gangster's moll Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) - stooge Michael Palin and, most of all, Kevin Kline as Wanda's psychotic boyfriend, Otto: he wants his jewels back, and he'll eat goldfish to get them.