Michael Palin

Radio Times review

You can guess where writer Tony Roche (The Thick of It, Fresh Meat) throws the TV Biographical Drama Rule Book, can't you? Yes, right through an open window, because Holy Flying Circus, about the furore of moral panic and hypocrisy that greeted the 1979 cinema release of Monty Python's Life of Brian, usurps every bio-pic trope and convention.

Thus Holy Flying Circus is littered with dream sequences and wanders off down some fantastical little byways (a bit too often, if truth be told) as we build up to the infamous ambush, on the live TV chat show Friday Night... Saturday Morning, of John Cleese and Michael Palin by an epically supercilious Bishop of Southwark and religious commentator Malcolm Muggeridge.

Roy Marsden is majestically effete and patronising as the bishop, Mervyn Stockwood, but the film belongs to Charles Edwards, who just IS Michael Palin, and Darren Boyd as John Cleese.

Oh, and Stephen Fry plays God. Of course. The whole thing is a mad mash-up of self-reference, cross-dressing, ribaldry and nonsense. I loved it!

The furore surrounding the release of Monty Python's Life of Brian in 1979 - which saw the film picketed by nuns, banned by local councils and accused of blasphemy - forms the basis of this one-off drama, a homage to the Pythons by Tony Roche (one of the writers for The Thick of It and its film spin-off, In the Loop). The drama raises good points about freedom of speech, religious intolerance and the boundaries of comedy.

It's also cheeky, fantastical and occasionally very funny. The structure, however, is a bit of a mess, trying too hard to ape the chaos of the Python format - it's often too surreal for its own good. The mix of drama, animation and puppetry builds towards a late-night confrontation on a TV chat show in which John Cleese (played by Darren Boyd of Green Wing and Whites) and Michael Palin (Charles Edwards) are pitted against the media commentator and outspoken Christian Malcolm Muggeridge (Michael Cochrane) and the Bishop of Southwark (Roy Marsden). This chat show debate really did take place; after it, Cleese and Palin said they'd lost their respect for Muggeridge, whom they'd admired in his earlier career as a satirist.

This week QI returned to its original home on BBC Two. As part of a special night devoted to the world's most interesting (and personally I think the greatest) panel game a documentary covering the making of the show was broadcast.

Speaking as someone who knows QI back-to-front and inside-out, I already knew about much of the information mentioned in the documentary, although to most viewers it did include stuff which will of no doubt be of interest. The fact, for example, Michael Palin was to be the original host (Stephen Fry and Alan Davies were going to be team captains, with Fry the head of the clever team and Davies head of the stupid team) and that two questions were created by reading an entire Albanian dictionary cover-to-cover is interesting.

However, there were some things that even I was surprised about. While I know that the show has popular demand, I didn't know that it was the TV show with the second biggest demand for tickets in Britain (after Top Gear), thus making it the most demanded comedy show in Britain. No wonder I've only been able to see one recording at the time of writing.

The main area of interest to me is the work carried out by the show's researchers or "Elves". For me, being a QI elf would be my dream job. Just trying to find anything that would be of interest, coming across a glorious chunk of information that hardly anyone else knows about, would be a joy to behold. That's why I spend so much time on the QI forums, trying to contribute information in the hope of recognition. One day maybe I'll get that job... one day... a man can dream.

Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus! (Radio 4, 10.30am) is a tale of fan power. Forty years ago Alfred Biolek persuaded the Monty Python team to make two 45-minute specials for German TV. Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Biolek himself tell Henning Wehn (the German comedian who's always on Radio 4 shows) how it happened. From independents All Out.

Video: Michael Palin on Brazil and carnivals

Michael Palin says he is looking forward to seeing carnival season in Brazil as part of his new series on the country.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show to Martha Kearney the former Monty Python star spoke about Brazil's increasing role in the world.

Michael Palin meets stammerers as part of documentary

Film stammerer Michael Palin has met six youngsters being treated for the condition as part of a new BBC1 show.

I met Ronnie Corbett once. It was during my time as a gossip columnist on this paper. I spotted him at a party and, somewhat starstruck, decided to approach and introduce myself. He was all right, I suppose, though not terribly polite. He didn't, he sniffed, read The Independent. More of a Telegraph man (must be the jokes). Anyway, he's 80 now, and BBC2 has devoted a few hours of scheduling to the occasion. First up was a rerun of The Two Ronnies Christmas Special from 1984, and then Being Ronnie Corbett, a fawning programme of dedications. We got Matt Lucas and David Walliams, Catherine Tate and Michael Palin, Miranda Hart, Rob Brydon, Stephen Merchant, and Bill Bailey. Even Bruce Forsyth put in an appearance. They all heaped praise on him, and deservedly so. After all, it wasn't them he was rude to at a party, was it? And he's jolly funny, or used to be, back in the day. Repeated clips of The Frost Report and The Two Ronnies were testimony to that. His more recent stuff, less so. That Extras sketch is great, of course - "a bit of whiz, you know? To blow away the cobwebs" - but, really, Ronnie, Little Britain? "I was just grateful to be included," was his explanation. And, to be honest, I believe him. This is a man whose raison d'être has been making people laugh; of course, he wants to keep up with the times. Why else would he agree to cuddle a half-naked Lucas in the least funny show on television?

He's the man they turned to when Brucey was too ill to present Strictly. He was caught taking drugs in Extras and entertained Bubbles DeVere in Little Britain. This year, to mark his 80th birthday, he'll have his own Christmas Day sketch show. Yes, it can only be unlikely national treasure Ronnie Corbett, the short comedian with the long career, charted here with loving input from his hordes of admirers including Miranda Hart, Rob Brydon, Stephen Merchant, Matt Lucas and Michael Palin.

Michael Palin: I'm very proud of fish-slapping dance

Michael Palin, 67, is best known for being part of the Monty Python comedy team and for travel documentaries.

Nobody does manic, despairing farce quite like John Cleese, who co-wrote and co-stars in this, his biggest film hit. He plays Archie Leach, a stuffy lawyer who is seduced by the minxy Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) - not realising that she's a bank robber and con artist who's using him for her own wicked ends. Michael Palin co-stars.