Michael Palin

Sir Michael Edward Palin, KCMG CBE, FRGS (born 5 May 1943) is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as the Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report, and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic", "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "The Spanish Inquisition", and "The Fish-Slapping Dance". Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer and travel documentarian. His journeys have taken him across the world, including the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and Brazil. In 2000 Palin was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television and in 2018 he received a knighthood for services to travel, culture and geography. From 2009 to 2012 Palin was the president of the Royal Geographical Society. On 12 May 2013, Palin was made a BAFTA fellow, the highest honour that is conferred by the organisation.
==Links To Peel ==
Palin went to the same school as Peel, Shrewsbury School. Both men knew each other at school, but Palin was in his first term, while Peel was in the final year.
Before becoming famous as a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Palin worked on a couple of TV shows featuring pop music - first, as one of the hosts on TWW's critically-acclaimed pop show Now! in 1966, and then on ITV's Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967-68), which featured Peel favourites the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band as regular guests. 
Palin drew on his public school experiences to write Tomkinson's Schooldays, the pilot episode of his BBC TV series Ripping Yarns, first shown in 1976. It parodied traditional public school stories like Tom Brown's Schooldays, but when Peel saw it he remarked that to him it was more like a documentary on his own schooldays than comedy.
On his show of 26 November 1979, Peel read out a trail for the BBC programme 'Personal Call' which featured his old schoolmate Michael Palin. Peel on the show mentioned that Palin had recently been on Desert Island Discs and criticised him for picking a bunch of rotten records. 
After Peel's death in 2004, Palin paid respect to Peel in the 2005 Channel 4 documentary programme, John Peel's Record Box.
In an interview with Edith Bowman for BBC 6Music in 2013, Palin described what it was like to be with Peel at school:
"An extrodinary character called John Ravenscroft or Ravenscroft J.R.P., as we knew him. J.R.P. was in his last term at Shrewsbury, while I was in my first term. Knowingly he had a great sense of humour...Somebody who wore his hair long, allowed to play his music in his study, nobody else was allowed to do.... because he got along with his housemaster because they had a similar sense of humour and Ravenscroft J.R.P. had no pretentions to be a prefect or head of school or any duties like that, but my God he knew about music." 
== See Also ==
*Sounds
==External Links==
*Wikipedia
*Palin's Travel
*IMDB
*Michael Palin talks to Mary Anne Hobbs about John Peel
Category:People