Python Years

The funny, warm and moving diaries of a man at the centre of one of the world's most influential comedy troupes.Michael Palin's diaries begin when he was newly married and struggling to make a name for himself in the world of television comedy. But Monty Python was just around the corner . . . This engaging volume is a window into the world of Monty Python, from the group's early cult success to the global superstardom that followed. Amongst tales from the making of THE HOLY GRAIL and LIFE OF BRIAN are stories of the three-day week and the various trials of a peripatetic life, told with Michael's trademark warmth and good humour.

His showbiz observations are so absorbing . . . Palin is an elegant and engaging writer, Accomplished . . . If Palin's comic genius is a given, this is a more rounded portrait of the decade which saw the Pythons become icons. Our favourite TV explorer shows us the workings of an unstoppable machine, Palin's style is so fluid, and his sincerity so palpable, that it is often easy to underestimate just how talented he is as a comedian, broadcaster and a writer . . . [the diaries] are just too good and he is too modest, Delightful and often extraordinarily funny . . . An entertaining and at times deeply moving read, If anyone writes a diary purely for the joy of it, it is Michael Palin . . . This combination of niceness, with his natural volubility, creates Palin's expansiveness

Michael Palin has written and starred in numerous TV programmes and films, from Monty Python and Ripping Yarns to The Missionary and The Death of Stalin. He has also made several much-acclaimed travel documentaries, his journeys taking him to the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and Brazil. His books include accounts of his journeys, two novels (Hemingway's Chair and The Truth), three volumes of diaries, Erebus, the Story of a Ship and Great Uncle Harry. From 2009 to 2012 he was president of the Royal Geographical Society. He received a BAFTA fellowship in 2013, and a knighthood in the 2019 New Year Honours list. He lives in London.