Michael Palin

Michael Palin calls David Beckham a "wimp"

Michael Palin has jokingly described David Beckham as a "wimp" after watching his Amazon rainforest documentary.

Radio Times review

Iain's engagement party is a low-key affair. Meg (Jo Joyner) is in the throng, still trying not to be envious of the woman who's now receiving her old squeeze's comforting, Michael Palin charm. While Iain worries that his hitherto unseen father-in-law will turn out to be exactly his age and temperament, Matt (Chris Addison) is tied up with a gang of local military nerds. The white lie that he was the skinniest hero in Helmand threatens to turn dark.

It's not the strongest episode, because the ongoing dramas take up space where traditional, farcical pay-offs should be, but there are glints of brilliance everywhere. Addison's drunk acting is a joy, and be sure to arrive on time for the pre-titles sequence, where Iain treats some difficult elderly patients.

Michael Palin interview

Michael Palin tells HuffPostUK why 'Monty Python has never really happened since'.

Monty Python interview

GQ talks to the iconoclasts who challenged the British establishment and ended up global comedy royalty. John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle discuss the glory years, blazing rows, groupies and the Knights Who Say Ni... Say no more!

The past isn't always an unfunny country

As former Monty Python Michael Palin now admits, not all comedy ages well, but the best humour will endure.

Monty Python reinvented British comedy

Michael Palin is typically self-deprecating about the Pythons' work. Their gleaming jewels more than make up for any 'dross'.

Michael Palin: A lot of Monty Python was 'crap'

Michael Palin announces his first solo tour of Britain, as he discloses the highlights and lowlights of his long career and admits a lot of Monty Python was c--p.

Michael Palin interview

After hitting the stage with Monty Python in July, Michael Palin is to embark on his first ever one-man theatre tour.

Michael Palin: 'time to give Python one last shake up'

We start rehearsal in June. I feel slightly overloaded with material but on the other hand, you want to give everything a go.

A splendid job of skewering much of the white-man snobbery of what had gone before was done by the Python spin-off Ripping Yarns, which came a little later. And a very decent fist of that was made in Alexander Armstrong's Real Ripping Yarns, an unabashedly loving tribute to the programme itself - and also to the inspiration behind it all, the Boy's Own Paper. Armstrong was the perfect presenter: and he, and Michael Palin and Terry Jones, showed, with nuance, that dreadful love-hate relationship between public-school lunacy, as evinced in the BOP and so successfully spoofed in Yarns, and the common good-humoured decency of the male race, as demonstrated by all three men. There was a certain wistfulness in Armstrong's tone as he read from RM Ballantyne: "Boys ought never to decline to climb a tree to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of them falling off and breaking their necks." A rewatchable delight.