Michael Palin 'given up' on trying to hold Monty Python cast together

3 October 2024, 20:14

Comedy legend and travel presenter Michael Palin has said he has “given up” on trying to hold the Monty Python family together.

Palin was part of the extremely popular British comedy group that aired the sketch series ‘Monty Python's Flying Circus’ in the early 1970s.

The 81-year-old went on to front a number of hugely successful overseas travel documentaries since 1980 including Around The World In 80 Days.

While discussing his new ‘There and Back: Diaries’ book with Andrew Marr on LBC, Palin described the process of the comedy group going their separate ways.

He said: “Well I’ve given up trying to hold together that original family.

“The thing was, the Pythons worked well when we were writing comedy. That was an amazing two or three years where we wrote together, everybody was contributing, we made each other laugh a lot. It felt an extremely, wonderfully happy ship to be on.

“John (Cleese) left in 1972, as soon as you realised that this wasn't going to go on forever, one had to accept that people wanted to do other things and we all did go on.”

Sir Michael Palin explains how the Monty Python cast has 'grown apart' to Andrew Marr

The presenter all but ruled out a reunion of the comedy group despite there continuing to be the demand for it.

He said: “I think the idea of bringing it all back was always around. I thought we've done, we've finished, we've done the best we can.”

Discussing the relationship and dynamic of the group now, Palin said: “I like their approval. I would like to continue to be on friendly terms with them all, I don't think I’m not but we see each other less.

“Some of us are far more defensive about what we're doing. We're all in different places now.”

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During the latest 'There and Back' anecdotes, Palin takes fans on a journey through "the most productive decade" of his life from 1999 to 2009.

At the start of that period, he fronted The Hemingway Adventure, in which he retraced the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway through the United States, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.

Documentaries that followed included his visits to the Sahara desert, the Himalaya region and Europe.

Talking to Andrew, Palin expressed gratitude to his family for their support and understanding during his various travels but says he feels a degree of guilt over missing parts of his children’s adolescence.

When asked how important is family compared to career achievements, Palin responded: “Hugely important. Absolutely at the basis of everything

“The very fact that Helen (Palin’s wife) was not a traveller herself, so didn't feel like she had missed out.

“She was very happy to be at home. She ran the home extremely well, that was a hugely important thing for me to be able to go away.”

He later joked: “She knew that If I didn't go I would probably be kicking chairs over in the kitchen or something like that.”

Palin added: “The children were hugely important. At the time I probably felt a little guilty I wasn't spending more time with them in the 90s, as they were just getting to the end of their education.”