‘We definitely were winging it!'

Sir Michael Palin on reinventing TV travel shows and how his epic adventures have changed his life

- ELAINE REILLY

MICHAEL PALIN: TRAVELS OF A LIFETIME

NEW SUN / BBC2 / 8PM / EP 1 of 4 /TRAVELOGUE

Back in the late 1980s, Sir Michael Palin changed the face of TV travelogues.

Amid a sea of travel shows designed to sell holidays and showcase places close to home, the Monty Python star took up an epic challenge to follow in the footsteps of fictional adventurer Phileas Fogg for BBC1’s Around the World in 80 Days.

His warm, slightly chaotic style was an instant hit with viewers, and since then he has embarked on many more once-in-a-lifetime trips.

Now, with the help of personal diaries and archive footage, he’ll be reflecting on his four most successful expeditions – Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, Full Circle and Sahara – in a new series for BBC2, Michael Palin: Travels of a Lifetime.

Sir Michael, 77, tells TV Times how travel has changed his life…

How does it feel to revisit your travels?

It’s a great experience. I’m very fortunate that over the years for different series I have seen an awful lot of the world. Having the chance to look back is great as I can relish the things we did and appreciate the people we met in some detail rather than it being an attic full of dusty travel memories.

Was the leap from acting to travelogues unexpected?

I was working continuously. The Pythons kept going with movies until the early 1980s and then I did a number of films including The Missionary in 1983, which I wrote myself, and Brazil in 1985, which was written and directed by [fellow Python] Terry Gilliam. It was only after A Fish Called Wanda in 1988 that there was a limbo period and I thought, ‘What am I going to do next?’ Then, quite by chance, the finger pointed from the sky at the BBC and said, ‘Ask this man to do a travel series!’ And that’s how it happened!