The Louis Theroux Podcast - S6 EP2: Michael Palin discusses Monty Python dynamics, famous fans, and ‘Life of Brian’ controversies 

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

In this week’s episode, Louis speaks with the legendary comedian, writer and adventurer Michael Palin. Joining Louis at Spotify HQ, Michael details the fiery group dynamics within Monty Python, having Johnny Cash and George Harrison as famous fans, and the controversies surrounding Life Of Brian. Plus, Michael and Louis discuss whether being ’nice’ is a help or a hindrance.   Warnings: Strong language and adult themes.    Links/Attachments:    TV Show: ‘Michael Palin in Venezuela’ (2025) - Channel 5  https://www.channel5.com/show/michael-palin-in-venezuela     TV Show Episode: Whicker’s World from ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ (1972) - BBC  https://www.channel5.com/show/michael-palin-in-venezuela     TV Show: ‘Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days’ (1989) - BBC   https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b008n8yy/around-the-world-in-80-days-with-michael-palin     The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978)   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077147/     Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)  https://www.itv.com/watch/monty-pythons-life-of-brian/10a5145a0001B/10a5145a0001     TV Show: ‘Ripping Yarns’ (1976 -1979) - BBC   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075568/     TV Special: ‘Beyond the Fringe’ (1964) - BBC   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138957/     TV Show: ‘Q5’ (1969 –1980) - BBC  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063944/     Terry Gilliam’s animations:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47mB_UymAIc     Fish slapping dance:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XeDvKqI4E    TV Show Episode: ‘Whither Canada?’ (1969)   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758095/     TV Show Episode: ‘The All-England Summarise Proust Competition’ (1972)  https://tv.apple.com/gb/episode/the-all-england-summarize-proust-competition-edit/umc.cmc.2wheg7yvkb0w3w55freoic0j2?action=play     Album: Monty Python’s Previous Record https://open.spotify.com/album/1GkvGswqHgUyMb5kIlGU2R     Sketch: Argument  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ    Sketch: Dead/Resting Parrot  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZw35VUBdzo     TV Show: ‘Fawlty Towers’ (1975-1979) - BBC   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072500/     Sketch: The Ministry of Silly Walks  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2ViNJFZC8    Book: North Korea Journal, Michael Palin (2019)   https://www.themichaelpalin.com/north-korea-journal/      TV Show: ‘Michael Palin: Travels of a Lifetime’ (2020) - BBC   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1SddawMoz8    Life of Brian Debate with Malcolm Muggeridge (1979) - BBC   https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/cyxe9180z84o     A Fish Called Wanda (1988)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095159/     Short Story: In The Penal Colony, Franz Kafka (1919)  https://www.kafka-online.info/in-the-penal-colony.html     Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Emilia Gill  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards   Shownotes compiled by Elly Young  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One two, one, two, one. Ready, mic number one. Hello there, welcome back to the Louis Theroux podcast. Today I'm joined by legendary comedian, writer and adventurer Michael Palin. Yes, that Michael Palin, the one from Monty Python, maybe you've heard of it. The iconic comedy troupe that also starred John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman. I was a huge fan of Python growing up. I was a little bit too young to watch it on TV, but we had one of the books and we had an album that I listened to religiously. So I did fanboy over Michael a bit, and I think I ended up trying to do some of the routines for him.

We cut some of that back. It was kind of cringe. But they were a big influence influence. That sounds like I'm a comedian. I'm not, I'm just a journalist and a humble documentary legend. The BBC sketch show, Monty Python's Flying Circus has become a cult classic. We kind of covered that. Since it was first released in 1969, I said that.

Michael co-wrote and starred in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Life of Brian and the Meaning of Life, all of them worth watching. He earned a BAFTA for his performance in 1988, a fish called Wonder. I was 18 when that came out. Let's go back to Python. That was an amazing series. It's a surreal mash-up. of absurdist humour that's both slapstick kind of lowbrow, if you like,

but then also cerebral, high-minded, intellectual, everything, the polarities merging together, a joke about Marcel Proust or Jean-Paul Sartre next to someone making a silly noise like, knee, knee was a big thing. Do you remember that, Millie? In 1989, Michael presented around the world in 80 days, a travel show in which he went around the world, but he didn't use planes in the footsteps of the fictional Phileas Fog. And that led to a whole set of series about travel

in which he went to the North and South Poles, the Sahara, the Himalayas, other places and became even more well known in this sort of second act and beloved as a genial, comfortable, witty, and enjoyable travel show companion. Which brings us to the here and now, he's got a series on Channel 5 about Venezuela. This one was recorded in person in September this year. He was in full promo mode for the new series. It's available now on Channel 5.

That's where we come in, talking about specific scenes from the show, so don't be confused. A warning that this episode contains a sprinkling of strong language and adult themes. All that and much else besides coming up. This episode is brought to you by Monzo. Have you ever sent a payment to someone and then realized you sent the wrong amount? Maybe it was a nephew and you thought, hey, they can buy a CD. Yes, I'm still living in the 1990s or some soap from the body shop. They'll need about what, 15 pounds, 20 pounds, and then you accidentally send 200?

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banking first. Monzo, download your new favourite bank. To apply for a Monzo current account, you must be over 16 and a UK resident. T's and Cs apply. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete. I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space. As it happens, neither of those dreams came true. I had to settle for being an award-winning documentary maker and international celebrity. Oh well, we've all had big dreams and it's not.

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We're going to talk about your Channel 5 travelogue. It looked quite dangerous. We'll come on to that. Thanks for making it back in one piece. The nation would be in mourning if you'd been abducted by Chavis. or indeed struck by lightning. There's one sequence you go lightning spotting

and you don't identify the possible risk that you might be struck and incinerated while boating across what is apparently the biggest hotspot for lightning anywhere in the world. 162 days nights of the year. Was it 262? Anyway, the lightning appears. Of course we're filming there and there's no lightning.

It was a little bit. We took us to Lake Maracaibo. You can go up and down this sort of a boring lake. I wasn't incinerated, so that's something to be thankful for. You're underselling it. I love the fact that you're saying the lake was boring and that there was no lightning. Neither of those things are evident from the film. Because you make the lake look pretty interesting and there is a little bit of lightning.

Yes. I'm embarrassed here, Louie. You might have pinned me down on use of a bit of stopped film. Oh, my God. Oh, no. That's the end of it. That's the end of it. Well, actually, I've done a few travel-ish, not travel documentaries,

but documentaries in which I travel over the years. And I identify quite strongly with aspects of things that I imagine you grapple with. And one of them is, people say, what was the most frightening thing? And really the most frightening thing is being stuck in your hotel with nothing to film. Yes, yeah. Or the idea that you're going to basically make a botch of the whole project. Yes. not be up to it.

Which, of course, you can't say. Yeah. Which is interesting. And they're exactly what you mean. And specifically, because one of the things I was watching in preparation for this was when you did your revisit during lockdown of some of your adventures and you talk candidly about behind the scenes stuff, you talk about how anxious you were about wanting to do a good job

and feeling that, you know, would you be able to, it's not like, oh, I worried about getting lost in the Kaiba Park. You didn't, I don't think you went through the Khyber Pass, or my yurt imploding, but it was more, would I be able to be a bullion and appropriately? Yes. Well, it was very much. For the full distance. It was very much about what role I was required to play.

You know, they said, well, you're the man to do it because, you know, you're intrepid and all that. I'd done one documentary, serious documentary about trains in 1981. Before that, all the Python stuff was sending up people who are doing documentaries. But I take it seriously. So what was I supposed to be? Was I supposed to be an actor playing Phileas Fogg? Was I supposed to be a serious reporter like Alan Wicker or someone like that? We're able to sort of summon up one minute sort of pieces to camera about everything that's happening in this country.

And I just didn't know. We should remind some of the younger viewers, or not remind, but tell them. Alan Wicker, because in his time, he was a legendary TV presenter, travel reporter, but always immaculately attired in tailored suits with a pencil moustache, ex-R-A-F man, I think. X-R-A-F and very, very sort of obviously X-R-A-F. He could have been on the flight deck there talking to people, reassuring them. And he loved to do a pun in the voiceover. Because we did, in Python, we did Wicker Island, where everybody on the island was Alan Wicker

and they're all passing each other here on this island, the inhalation, the composer, Alan Wickers. And then someone else would come in and say, their voice, the ties, the smart suits, all part of, and someone else would come in with the microphone, the Alan Wicker creation. And so, anyway, I won't try and do it again. We should pivot on that just for a second,

because in your first episode of Round on the World in 80 days, you go and see him. Yes. And he gives you what I think is, totally counterintuitive advice. Do you remember what it was? Well, there were many things in advice. One was never have dinner with the crew.

You just know, you're in the middle of Afghanistan or somewhere like that. Who do you go to? You can go to that restaurant. We're going over here. It's a kind of mayfair sort of attitude to it all that he can go off to his club. Speak English. Never speak the local language. Never speak the local language.

And if you do speak English, speak it very loudly. Yes, and sort of push through. Come on, coming through, coming through. It was really a sort of, you know, a kind of job description of a colonialist in a way. But he knew that, and he had a humour. He had a certain humour there. But he was quite rude about my travels around the world start with.

So, well, he's not a proper traveller. He's an actor, you know, and all that. But then he sort of got, he mellowed, and by some extraordinary, A quirk of fate, I was voted best sort of travel program of the year or something like that on the ITV awards. And who did they get to present the award but Alan Wicker? And after that we corresponded quite a lot. Did you?

And I realized he had a great sort of, there was an exterior there, which was put on. And he knew that that was what he got away with. He had to wear the suits all the time. He had to wear the tie all the time. The same way that you or I wear the same gear when we do program. generally. He thought about all that. But it wasn't exactly him. Anyway, why are we talking so much about it?

He's playing a wrong. Well, and it also speaks to the fact that when you were offered the gig, and maybe this fed into whatever insecurity you felt at the time that you were told or found out later that you weren't the first choice. Oh, yes. I'm never sure if you're joking when you say that. Is that really true? That was true, yeah, yeah.

And they offered it. Who else did they offer it to? Noel Edmonds was one Miles Kington who was a very brilliant journalist He was a good friend and died young Comic columnist Yeah and I think you said Wicker was also offered the gig

Yes Wicker was I think number one Yeah that's right he turned it down This was apparently turned it down Because they got him to the BBC And they took him out for lunch And they went to the local pizza place You know Down the corner

And Wicker doesn't do pizza places. If he's taken out of lunch by the BBC, he wants the full works, you know, the sort of the champagne and the cigars. And that was the story. But he wouldn't have done it anyway, because it was very, it was a messy thing. It was too personal and informal, I think. Well, he did say, which I thought was interesting when we did our interview at the end of it, he said, I'm going to give you a card here. Now, this is a company that will take you from any part of the world where you're having trouble or whatever you want

and it will ferry you out and bring you home straight away and again I wasn't sure if he was joking but this was it because he couldn't believe it was a card with what did it have on it the card? The name of this company sort of you know I mean he was basically trying to say I do these things you're an actor have a go

I'm sure you'll be very funny but it isn't easy so I'm going to help you by giving you cards for a dress for a helicopter to take you out. They just didn't get what I was going to do. There's a lazy analysis of your life, there's two big categories, two big buckets, as they say now. You've done hours of amazing travel programs, but there's also Python.

Are you happy to talk about Python? Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't talk about anything really, but yeah, I'm happy to talk about Python. Python for, which is, I know this gets, It's bandied around a lot, but I think it's apropos. I think we're a little bit to comedy as the Beatles were to music. Not coincidentally, or maybe coincidentally,

you had an association or worked with George Harrison as well. Yeah, and oddly enough, the first episode of Python ever shown, I think it was October 5th, 1969, was almost the same day of the Beatles announced they'd broken up. Isn't that interesting? And of course, the Beatles were heroes to us. I've heard someone say of Harrison that he believed that the spirit of the Beatles

had gone into Python I don't know I mean he was the one who was actually most responsive to the pythons I would say and not just Python but other work that was being done Eric Idle did the Ruttles and George was a great supporter of that and actually appeared in it the sort of spoof Beatles

yeah spoof Beatles documentary and it was later really that we realized what a fan George had been of the pythons when he bailed us out when we were making life of Brian and EMI who had taken a punt on it and said yes we want to do this life of Brian two younger executives had made this decision and the head of EMI read the script and said what are we We can't do this. This is blasphemous.

You know, this is a British company. We can't do things like this. And so they backed out very quickly. And George happened to be in Los Angeles. Eric Adels there. Eric talked to him and told him the problem. And George said, oh, well, you know, oh, they knew the money.

How much you want? And in the end, he agreed to give us $5 million, I think it was. Anyway, he enabled us to make life of Brian. So that was a kind of later stage when we cemented our relationship spiritual or otherwise with George. But he definitely was the humour that we wrote really meant something to him. I said it wasn't just Python. He was a very big fan of the ripping yarns. And I think he felt there was something between him and us

that wasn't quite the same coming from Paul McCartney or Ringo. Did you meet all of them? I never met John. sadly, but I met all the others, yeah. Got to know Paul quite well. Paul's lovely, easygoing and all that. Ringo was actually appeared on one of the Python shows and all that. But it was George who seemed to sort of find something else in our humor.

And I say it was broader than just Python. How, I feel awful sort of putting you on the spot in a sort of literal way, but how would you explain what Python was and in what way it was a kind of a moment in the culture when it happened? I think probably the main thing about Python was that it was formless. It came along after, you know, the 60s were

sort of things were changing a lot anyway, beyond the fringe. The fringe, which was Alan Bennett. Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore. Who'd come out of what, Cambridge or something? It was basically a comedy review show. Cambridge and Oxford, yeah, but varsity reviews. And they'd suddenly started doing sketches where they could impersonate the Prime Minister and things like that, which in the

1950s would absolutely unheard of, and that would be serious. You couldn't put in prison almost for that. So everything was very conventional, and the shape of comedy was very conventional, and the only person who had really, really changed things on television was Spike Milligan, who did a series called Q5, which had some very pythonic things in it, and was wiped. it's not, no longer, hardly any of it exists. But we carried on to try and be funny, be as funny as possible, without any restrictions. So, for a start, don't worry about having a beginning, a middle and end to a sketch.

If you've got a fragment of a sketch, either do it as a fragment or you put it in with something else. So it's like a great big curry, comedy curry. and we were blessed by having Terry Gilliam with us whose animations were so sort of completely different to anything seen on English television or American television. Very controversial. He used collages of, what are they?

They've found illustrations. They look Edwardian, a lot of them. Yes, yeah. Sometimes naked Edwardian ladies and then men playing them like a violin or their heads explode. People climb inside each other's bodies. Or he would just use an image

like Botticelli's Venus standing there in the shell and suddenly the music was starting to kick her legs up one way and then the other way so he got some very funny stuff but most of all he helped Python create this mix

and so no one could actually pin down what Python was and I think that was what was the most important thing to us that the contribution from all of us could be varied could be different there was as long as something was funny

there was room for it we'd work it in it's been said that you'd write with Terry Jones John Cleese would write with Graham Chapman Eric Idle wrote on his own is that more or less the case Yes yes

You know I went back and watched some of the early ones They're all available You're on record of saying That your favourite one Maybe of your own is the fish slapping dance Yeah I mean that's just a fragment That you can't So you either laughed it

or you don't. That's all it's there for. There's no build-up. There's no conclusion. What happens in it? Well, thank you. Give my chance to give my one-hour lecture, the fish-stapping dance.

It's conception and its conclusion. Well, basically, it wasn't a Python show. It was a Eurovision entertainment thing, where everyone, all the various contributors throughout Europe would provide some material. It could be about their, country and all that. So Python was chosen to do the British one, which was very nice for the BBC. So we created these very strange country dances. And one of them was the fish slapping dance,

which just was basically myself and John with pith helmets and shorts, long army shorts, standing beside a canal at Teddington. And the music would start and I would rather camply scamper up holding two pilchers. and lightly slap John on the face. And then I would go back and then I'd come again and I'd slap him on the face. And I'd go back and I'd slap him on the face. He remains completely non-reactive. Yeah, absolutely.

Until the end. It was just one of those wonderful things because John can do that sort of lack of reaction. And yet, you know, there's a sort of volcanic eruption about to happen. Anyway, I finished doing that. I bow. John reaches behind him and gets out a very large fish and does this very wonderful thing

which I think sort of makes it really he takes aim in a very sort of like you might have learned this at Sandhurst you know this is how you operate a fish lap takes aim very carefully and then whack and I just fall straight into the water about 12 feet

the good thing is by the looks of it is a long drop well the lock was full when we rehearsed and we took a bit of time getting it right and they said come on come on no time let's get on with it now ready for a take and the music started

and I looked down and actually the locker drained and there was about a 15 foot drop so I could have said no I'm not going to do this but I just knew go for it and I must say the fall I did was really good

I mean it was very perfect angle straight down there pith helmet hits the water first I was very very proud of that and that's I think that conclusion works really well because it's such a long drop

you didn't do another take no he didn't do another take in fact I might have drowned because there was I crashed into water and I had heavy boots on which had sort of filled up with the water and all I could hear

a lot of people laughing around the camera and nobody seemed to be aware that I was struggling in the water getting dragged down by these water-filled boots but eventually I was fished out

and that was that but I mean we didn't know at the time how it would work but when it was put together it's just one of those moments where I think you could use it as a standard of whether people have a sense of humour or not

and we've used it quite a few times because I've used it on your travels a few times I have used it in North Korea almost like a calling card here's what I do afraid so yes in North Korea

Well, this is, it's interesting you should say, here's what you do, because when we showed it to our guide in North Korea, and I mean, she was lovely our guide, but in North Korea, you don't talk about anything other than what's on their agenda. You can't talk about your country particularly. They don't ask any questions. They're sort of bullied into dispensing with curiosity about anything. It's just what they can talk about. So we were stuck in the airport, and the director had bought various python bits, including the fish slapping dance, and we played it to her. And it's a really nice moment because there's not many moments of spontaneity in North Korea. Everything is kind of well kind of. But she watched that, and she just broke up. It was really nice to cameras on her face. And then, you know, as I hit the water, then she looked at me and says, oh, so this is what you do. I said not now, not now.

Not all the time. It's not a full-time job. It crosses borders and also decades. It still holds up in going back and looking at some of the... I mean, some of it does. Well, I look back at some of the Python shows and I think how on earth did we include that? Things that just didn't work.

But that was part of it really. Episode one was 1969, episode one was called Wither Canada. That has the famous funniest joke in the world sketch We're a joke that's so funny It's actually lethal, extremely dangerous Almost like a what would be like a chemical agent You know, like one of those things Yes, Agent Orange

And that people can't, they have to sort of wear gloves And get masked up in order to carry the joke around And then they hold it up on the front line of the war And kill the enemy soldiers It also has the Picasso cycling while painting race Yeah. Which exemplifies one of the things I always loved about Python, which was sort of unapologetic cerebral quality.

There's a scene where Cleese is just listing all these French continental painters. Yeah, modern painters, yes, exactly. In a very fast list. Like us, Rao de Verde. Like us. Comitator, yes. Yeah, yes. Stuvius are coming on the inside.

The whole lineage is bringing up the tone. Which I suppose you have to be maybe an little, an annoying geek student, like art, which is basically describes something. But to appreciate but I loved all that. We enjoyed the freedom to put that in and I suppose if anybody had analysed Python and said well, you know, keep down the university jokes

people wouldn't understand that, just do slapstick. But I think some of my favorite moments when you kind of take an intellectual concept like Proust, for instance, there was this sketch which I was sort of, I loved

because it was the Summised Proust competition, set in a sort of northern working class stage in a theatre. Summised Proust, we ask our contestants to summarise all Proust's masterwork and I'll share your Tom Perdue in 15 seconds. And slowly get the first contestant. He does, you know, you've got 15 seconds summarised Proust masterwork. It's lovely because he starts with Swan's Way. And he said, right, oh, um, you.

Yeah, there's this blow. Swan, swan, swan, that's right, swan. And he's, oh, he goes, no, he's in bed. No, no, he's not going, ding, sorry. It's total absurdity of trying to get someone to do that. Were you conscious when it went out that it was game-changing, that it was changing the culture? I wouldn't say any idea of it changing the culture particularly.

I think to start with, we were just very nervous, to whether we'd get away with it. Who would watch this jumble of stuff? And it wasn't an immediate success, I don't see. No, it wasn't. I mean, I don't think it ever got very high in the ratings because the BBC did everything they could. Your first series to kind of suppress it

to make sure it was put on late at night, I think 10 o'clock or something like that. There were various parts of the BBC network which had opt-out slots at that. time. So at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night in the Midlands, they had farming today. And there was quite a lot of people wrote in and said, why aren't we getting Monty Python? And so the BBC squeezed it out very, very, very tightly. Reluctantly. There's a famous story about being commissioned in which they said, well, we're not too sure about this. So we only want you to make

13 of them. Yes. I mean, that was the greatest sentence in comedy history, I think. We We had this meeting. We tried to pitch it to a man called Michael Mills. And he came in and we burbled on, said, you know, have you got guest singers? Will you have guest stars? No, we don't know. What's the title?

No, we don't know. And at the end of it, he got up and said, all right, I'll give you 13 shows, but that's all. And what a wonderful thing I've got, you know, would like that embroidered on Night Wall, really. 13 shows, but that's all. It's been said you were commissioned by David Atte. Is that true?

Or is he just running the channel? I can't remember exactly what he was. We were very high up at the Beeb. And actually, they used to have a thing called the Light Entertainment Party. So everyone who'd done Light Entertainment shows would go to a Christmas party. And at the end of the first series, we were a bit grumpy about when we'd been put out. And the fact that they made sure people couldn't see it in certain areas and all that. So we'd winged on.

And nobody really bothered. apart from David Attenborough, who came across, and he said, I hear you're a bit upset about the programming. And I said, yeah, I mean, it's just because it's put on so late. It seems they were keeping it well away from children and all that. And he said, yeah, I agree, but you'll find out that in the future, this is the way you become a cult. and he said that's what Python will become which is exactly what happened and people made a great effort to try and see it

and there were so many instances of people saying I managed to find Python on the channel on the BBC and it was wonderful and all that so David had the right sort of he knew whereas the others just didn't want to talk about it I this is the personal portion of the podcast So I was born in 1970.

I was probably exposed to Monty Python content younger than is perhaps recommended in parenting manuals. But my parents had a copy of what was called Monty Python's previous album. Do you remember that one? It's really mysterious in a way because I didn't get the jokes, but I still sort of a, there was something about it that I wanted to be part of. And then some of it I did get because it had the argument sketch on it, which is also considered, I think, one of the best. Yeah, yeah.

Which you act in. I think it's Cleason Chapman, perhaps, wrote it. Cleason Chapman wrote it, yeah. Where a man goes and he wants an argument, and then he has an argument about whether he's actually being given an argument. Yes. Or whether the person's just contradicting him, and if that counts. Yeah.

I'm not really doing it. I'm not selling it as a comic firecracker, but it's very wise. It's very sharp and very quick and kind of perfect verbal wit. Very good, you know. Is this the right room for an argument? I've told you once. Yes, that's right. No, you haven't.

Yes, I have. When, just now? No, you didn't. Yes, I did. Yeah, and off you go. Off you go. It had a certain rhythm to it. The shifts in tone, the modulations in tone were,

and a lot of the comedy is someone, explosive anger, people being genteel, and then it just, I mean, that was very much a Python thing, and I think it was partly, John's character generally was impressive, and he looked very sort of...

Very tall, That's part of it, isn't it? It took life very seriously. And it sort of saturnine face of... Yes, well, he could completely blank his face, so he could look quite forbidding. Yeah. And he did these wonderful characters

that would sort of suppress their anger for a certain matter, and then it would absolutely explode, you know, like in the dead parrot sketch and all that. It's dead, no, no, it's not, it's resting. All right, if it's resting, I'll wake it up then.

In the dead parrot sketch, he's the customer who's bought the dead parrot. Yes, that's right. You are the shopkeeper. I've sold him the dead parrot. And you're denying that it's dead. Yeah, I mean, I'm resolutely saying, no, it's not dead. It's just resting.

It's clearly dead and being dead for a long, long time. But why John is so funny is that he, I mean, he's very critical of things, and he does get angry about things, far more so than I do. But he manages to channel that into comedy. And you see, Faulty Towers, whatever John may say, is so much Basil Faulty's, so much, John, or that sort of person who will get very angry with time to be terribly nice and be very British and helpful. And then it comes to an inanimate object which drives him mad, you know, so he hits the car

with a stick and all that. And he can do it, he can do it to make it incredibly funny, whereas other people might, you might think, oh God, this is a bit scary. Would you rage at each other when you were writing and making the shows? Occasionally, but, you know, we were British boys. We're all sort of nice to each other in the way. But when you argued about material, yes. I mean, if someone was saying, look, I think this is very funny

and it should be in the show, and someone else didn't like it and they'd say, no, I don't think it should, then you would have one of these slightly difficult arguments about what is funny and what isn't funny. The great thing about Python was largely that we had a good, we had a pretty good taste in humour. We knew what went into the top pile, sketches that we just didn't need any work on them.

But there was sort of middle area of sketches half worked. And the writers of them sometimes get a bit sort of protective and say, well, you know, we're not read this right or something like that and it will work very well. So we'd argue there, and that would be a bit shouty. And John was always provoking people like Terry. I mean, Terry being Welsh, John just had a go at his Welsh attitudes, you know, and all that sort of thing. What would that mean Welsh attitudes?

Paranoia, mainly. Yeah. You just, you don't like that because you can't speak about it. So your Welshness is coming out. It's all right. I'm sorry, you know, all those centuries, but you just weren't good enough, you know, to take over England. You just didn't, and Terry would rise to this. Really?

Yeah, Terry, absolutely, the Welsh button, we'd really get him going, and you get very high pitch and all that. But that was all in the mix of Python, and it was all, it was good. We had these very strong, a lot of, I mean, all of us, fairly strong characters,

very strong ideas about, you know, what we felt about the world, and how we thought what was funny and what wasn't funny. contributions were from all different directions which I think was very important so it had a kind of slow build as a cult phenomenon

and took off in America it was licensed on PBS and so rolled out which is kind of perfect in a way because that's not really mainstream TV either that's this archipelago of local stations that are supposed to be slightly offbeat and high-minded and advertiser free

and so you developed this at what point were you aware that it was, you know, did it, was there a tipping point? And you sort of thought, actually this is blowing up and this is becoming something really big. In America.

Yeah. It began to spread quite slowly to the various cities where PBS, public broadcasting, was seen. And that was mainly student areas where there were campuses. College towns. It was really very exciting

because clearly it wasn't just a show they liked. It was a show that people felt was unlike anything they'd ever seen before, which of course was the key to the success in the States because no commercial broadcaster would have wanted their name associated with Monty Python with a strange English program that says rude things about women.

Yeah, jokes about Proust. Yes, jokes about Proust, yeah. So for student audiences, it was a real eye-opening. It was a bit like the sort of the new music and the rock and roll and all that. Yeah. This was something created. by the younger generation.

Yeah, it was part of the counterculture. And it was their voice, and it wasn't anything to do with the big commercial companies or anything like that. So I think a lot of people in America really identified with what Python was. And there was a wave of alternative, I don't know if they used that term, but they call it the new comedy. I read Steve Martin's autobiography, Born Standing Up, and he talks about being conscious that they were part of trying to create a new comedy and that Saturday Night Live in New York was doing something similar.

Yeah. And you had figures like John. Ron Belushi and Dan Akroyd and others. Bill Murray. Were you conscious of having an influence on them and did you mix in those circles at all? Well, I knew that they, because they kept hearing from people that, oh, so-and-so,

whether Stephen Martin, whoever has seen your shows, really likes it. I remember Johnny Cash had seen the programmes. Elvis apparently have seen... I know Elvis is well known, and he would call people Squire. Yes, yes. He loved Brighton. But how do you know about Johnny Cash? That was just passed on to you by someone?

No, I met him once. He's over here doing a show in the green room, and we're all on the same show, and Johnny Cash suddenly appears in the green room, and which is just a great event, because he's very tall, and he wears high heels anyway. So this enormous presence, this godlike figure, as I was concerned, suddenly there,

and he kind of, hello, and he comes across to me, and says, holds his hand out and says, John Cash, big fan. Oh, wow. And then he, you know, he said he'd seen all. Really? Yeah. Because I think it was a sort of mark of identity

with people who wanted something alternative. I don't think they understood jokes about cricket and vickers and all that sort of thing, but they knew there was something about this show that was its own master. It could say what it wanted to say. This episode is brought to you by British Airways. You know, travel's always been an important part of my life, both personally and professionally.

Growing up, me and my family, we'd travel to America every year. My dad's American and spend time on Cape Cod. we'd fly into Boston. And there was something about getting in touch with my American side. Although I sort of come across quite British, I'm more American than you might think. And seeing my family being immersed in their love and also their oddity,

because, you know, they would talk like this and they had different breakfast cereal and they'd say, here's some Hershey's kisses. And they didn't really sound like that. But that's the best I can do right now. Later on, I lived in New York when I was starting. starting my work as a journalist, working on television and living in Brooklyn, flying back and forth to London. And then more recently, I've been a bit more of a homebody, but still once a year we get away to Greece.

We go to Crete as a family, which always feels like a break from the norm and a way for us as a family to kind of get in touch with each other, to spend time together without the stresses and strains of the school routine or the workday routine. So travel has always been important throughout my life and how you get there, obviously, makes a big difference. Every one of us is an original and thoughtful touches from British Airways make every journey an unforgettable one. Everywhere we go makes us everything we are. So what will you be?

To plan your next trip, visit Britishairways.com. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete. I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space. As it happens, neither of those dreams came true.

I had to settle for being an award-winning documentary maker and international celebrity. Ah well, we've all had big dreams and it's never too late to make them happen. This is your sign to stop holding back and go for it, especially if your dream is to run a business because Shopify is making it easier than ever. It's there to support you every step of the way, from designing your website to marketing to product descriptions to sales. The list goes on and on.

So give it a shot. Turn those dreams into sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Louie, L-O-U-I-S. That's Shopify.com slash Louis, L-U-I-S. Over the Python project, there still hovers a sense in which everything is not fully harmonious that, you know, you sort of get on, but at times there's little wrinkles and in your diaries you talk about stresses at the time. Is there a way of talking about any of that

that's not likely to make things awkward? Well, I mean, I can't remember absolutely specifics, But if something's very successful, as Python became very successful, then issues like who thought of what at the time or who thought of the name here and there becomes kind of important to the people who thought about it. So it's not a big issue, but if you find someone else saying, well, we had this idea that day and we wrote this sketch,

and you know patently that you were the ones who had the original idea, that didn't seem sort of fair. The problem was that there are, you know, a number of sketches in the films and on TV are absolutely clear. They've not been changed. They work perfectly and they may be written by Graham and John or myself and Terry or Eric. But then there's another area where it's less clear ideas would come in. I mean, the Ministry of Silly Walks, I think, went through about three or four different rewrites from various people within the group. because that's what you would do sometimes.

I said, well, we've gone as far as we can with this. Why don't you take it away? And people would take it away. And so things became co-authored. But it was never sort of written down. There was no contracts. I mean, that was a great thing about Python. It was supposed to be as free as possible.

Just get on with writing the funniest stuff possible. But it didn't mean that there were those areas where people would say, well, I thought of silly walks or whatever. I mean, I claim credit for most of them. What would it matter? It's not a financial thing, or is it? No. No, it isn't entirely.

No. I'm being a little bit cagey here because there are certain complications in material ownership. Yeah. Everything was really divided up and everybody got a bit. I think that Eric managed to get a deal on

and always look on the bright side which he didn't have to share everything with the rest of us in quite the same way and nobody... He wrote that one though, right? He wrote that, yeah, I did very good. It's a brilliant song. But who knew it was going to become the most requested song at funerals

and that football teams football supporters? There's a lot of money in music, it turns out. Evidently, yes. I say that, you know, you're from Sheffield, right? This is, take this with a big bag of salt. But there was, one of the bits of research that popped up was the richest people from Sheffield.

Oh, God, really? Allegedly. That's not one of those how rich is Michael Payling things you see on online. It might well be. And number one, Phil Oakey, the Human League. You know who I mean? I know who you mean, yeah, yeah. You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.

Yeah. I just made him another hundred pounds. Estimated wealth, 85 million. Joe Elliott, for Def Leopard, I don't know, is he the lead singer? 57 million. Then there's two footballers, Carl Walker and Harry McGuire, and Michael Palin is number five. Really?

What about Jarvis Cocker and pulp? I think all those numbers, I'm highly skeptical of. Yeah. That was just a sidebar that I wanted because I wanted to sing a little bit of Human League. Yes, that's good. Well, you could, I could have said, common people, I could do that,

but I'm not going to do it out. Do you know Jarvis a little bit? I've done a couple of programs with him. Is there a Sheffield Mafia? Well, he's very, yeah. I mean, no, we don't get together on a sort of dis people from Manchester or Leeds or anything like that. But there are certain people who take pride in coming from Sheffield

because Sheffield has neglected. I think that's it, you know. But we do produce something. occasionally Arctic monkeys, pulp, whatever, very good, very good music, some good theatre from the crucible and all that. It's a creative hub in a way. I'm a doctor of Sheffield Hallam University.

Are you really? Not Sheffield University. No, I know Sheffield Hallam University. Because I lived near there. After the podcast, I'd be happy to give you a full check. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm very reasonable.

I think you'll find me quite reasonable. Yeah, there's something about you that I like, and I realise now what it is. It's your ability to help out Sheffield's educational situation. It's the medical know-how. You're very good of you, very big of you, considering how much you must be requested. How many fellowships do you have?

Just the one. Oh, really? Oh, dear. I've got eight. Have you got eight? I think so, yes, quite a lot. Edinburgh, Sheffield, Oxford. Oh, I won't know what.

They say you're nice and yet you're so boastful. Yeah. Well, I'm opening up to you, you see. Anyone else, I would preserve the niceness as long as I could, but it's beginning to crack now. What's coming out is this rather unpleasant sort of oily kind of sanctimonious. Yeah. Did you, you had to give an address, I assume.

And what was the tone of your address? well look this isn't about me okay all right but what I said was but since you've asked no I think I was talking about perhaps it was the usual thing I can't believe I just said that I think the idea that awkwardness the things that you think are disadvantages are often if you look at them a certain way advantages

yeah in your case particularly no no with plenty to be humble about as they say Well, I think, I mean, I, well, I like what you do, but I think we share something which is a kind of, I don't know, feeling that if you're on television, it's not because you're absolutely brilliant and everything. It's because you're quite honest, you're quite direct, and you know a certain amount,

and you're prepared to let other people talk rather than yourself. I mean, that's what I think when I knew the travel programs. I know my name's above the credits, but really it's the people you meet and the people you talk to. that give you the material, which is what you do is so well. Well, I should say, it is out the same.

Well, I appreciate that. I think that's a compliment, and I'll take it. I think there's a sense also that, I mean, it's the opposite of the Wicter thing, which is that recognizing that you are one of the team and I think attempting to be a little bit of a team player, It was striking, I read your North Korea journal, and you know, you gave the afterword to your director, Neil Ferguson, who's the director on the Venezuela project as well.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And sort of acknowledging that actually there is a process and not overly mystifying. And, you know, you sort of talk about the recchi, which a lot of people in TV land and radio land don't realize is that usually, not always, usually a team's been out before you in order to sort of smooth the way. Absolutely. I mean, I feel this so strongly, because I know, as you know, how much you depend on the team, doing all the work, making sure you can go to a certain place, you're going to be safe there, finding out the people who are going to be able to talk to on the day. You don't just walk into a room and everybody's there. That's been sort of, kind of planned in a way. And I've always, well, I've obviously said that certainly in my programs, I mean, the photography is. is so important. I mean, 50% is me going around. The rest is just wonderful shots. Taken by a very good camera team

and sound team and all that. I realise that they're important. I think other people ought to realise that too. I agree. In lockdown, I watched your... What was it called? Michael Palin looks back or something. Yes, yes.

Journey of a lifetime. Travels of a lifetime. That's right. There was a bit, I remember I was in a hotel somewhere I was looking at it and you were, it was, there were these dancers. They were somewhere in, they were the Wadabi. I broke this down recently. Oh, right. A nomadic Fulani people that's a hell region of West Africa known for their annual Gerewal Festival.

Yes. And it was exquisitely shot and there were these tall men wearing jewelry and they were doing a courtship dance. Yes. Showing off the physical prowess, their portitude as a way of finding, I guess, a wife and I remember thinking wow I'd never we'd never shoot anything like that in my program we've never done anything but how enjoyable it was it felt it felt amazing what was so nice about that were blokes showing off to get a girl but it wasn't there were peacocking I think they call that breaking out and a rate lifting iron and all that

sort of stuff it was very it's very camp and it was very they were very feminine and wide eyeing and wide eye. There's a lot of sort of gurning. And then going up on tiptoe and down again and all that, ooh, you know, would have been seen as something that would have been seen as joyfully camp on English comedy. One of them I thought was tweaking my gai-dar, but that might have been me.

I think they weren't after blokes, although they look like that. You definitely don't think they were. We'll never know. Yeah, we'll never know. but I thought that's one of the great curiosities you find in travel. You see something completely counterintuitive. And I thought, you know, the world I've been brought up in,

Britain of 1940-50s was just such a sterile place in a way, I'm afraid. The colours were grey. The morals were pretty sort of severe. I just feel the travelling I've done has given me the chance to see something about the world which is so sort of elevating and liberating and joyful and seeing how people can live and what they can do and despite all the sort of misery and unrest

they're everywhere you go in every country there are things you feel, oh, if only we had that in our country. More peacocking, more dancing and gurning. Although we do have gurning, that's another north. Not just that. English thing, I think. Do they gurn in Sheffield? That is a northern thing, isn't it? Yeah, yes. You're not going to get me to gurn, because real gurners go, oh, no, it's quite extraordinary. They sort of, lips go over their head sort of thing.

You take your false teeth out for that. Well, you don't, obviously, but one does. No, I put mine in for that, as I do on television. Always wear my teeth. Did you, you've been, you married relatively early, stayed married. And in a sense, if you'd had, not wayward years, but a sort of adventuresome, you know, time of loose living, what is the appropriate term? Rock and roll years, did you feel you missed? What was the closest you got to that?

I read somewhere you went to Studio 54 on one occasion, or maybe a few occasions. Yeah, the nearest I got to sort of debauchery. That's the one. Of any kind. It was sort of in those, the brief period after Python had been a great success in America and everybody was inviting us out to things and all that and there's a

studio 54. Playboy mention? I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, you'd go to a club where Mick Jagger was there and all that and... He was probably with Bianca. And various relaxants would be taken and all that. Muscle relaxance. Yeah.

Yes. Brain relaxants. And I was never, I just never actually able to suspend my sort of faculties. enough to say, so I'll float off. So I never took LSD or anything like that. Really?

What about a cheeky line? Yeah, cheeky line. I did, I mean, ages ago, yes. That's our headline. I mean, last Tuesday. Oh, yes. Never actually did, never changed me at all. I found that I was able to be extremely happy and loud

without taking any drugs at all. Apart from, of course, alcohol. Yeah. Which, well, mum forgets, you know, who would you take the line of this, but I'd probably have had sort of six scotties in an evening or something like that and think, well, that's not drug-taking. That's just sort of slaking your thirst, land.

That's all that is. And I wish I had, in a way, sort of perhaps be more decadent because every, you know, magazine feature tends to be about the awful things that people have had to go through to be famous. They're famous, they're wonderful. We all love their music, but they nearly killed themselves several times. A little do you know, but while they were making that classic album

or that amazing TV show, they were out, razzling till the wee hours, falling asleep on set the next day. Yeah, I mean, that's the way to get publicity. I'm far too dull. No, but I get it. I'm similar. I sometimes feel as though I read it. people's memoirs of debauchery and think, well, maybe that's something I've got to look forward

to. Never too late to start. Well, it is actually. 82 is a bit too late to start debauchery, but not too late to stop having fun. It's a very, and now I'm 80 over my 80s. I feel much a sense of irresponsibility somewhere along the line. Nobody really bothers you if you're over 80. You're a statistic, which is, you're in the departure lounge, really. It's just a question and what particular ailment is going to get you. So, you know, just be nice to eight-year-olds and all that. So it gives you a lot of freedom. If you feel okay, you can say almost what you want and do what you want.

Do you, how do we do this? So there was, life of Brian is for many, perhaps iconic, for the Python output. And one of the things came up in research is you appear on a chat show. Malcolm Mungeridge is there, the Bishop of Norwich? Southwark. Southwark. Who was Malcolm Muggeridge?

It's one of those names that's always coming up, and I never know who it is. Malcolm Mugge was a journalist. He was a journalist and a writer. Then he had sort of a slight conversion and became rather sort of pompous about his life and what he'd done and all that. And what he did was,

and what the bishop did as well, assume that we were seen as juniors, up-and-coming sort of comedians, John and myself. Upstarts. Whereas they were the establishment. And basically this is what kept Britain going. And in the end, these are the people that Britain listened to. And that night, nobody listened in the end to Mugridge or the bishop. And the bishop would say outrageous things like, well, I hope you get your 30 pieces of silver for making the film.

Because they felt Life of Brian, which was an account of someone who's mistaken for the Messiah, and was falsely construed by some as apisite, or sacrilegious or inappropriate, disrespectful towards Christianity. So there was a reaction to it. Was this before the film came? It was like, it's, to me, it's an example of headline writing. And I think there's a recursive our day is you can get very good articles, you can get pieces written very well, but the sub-editor will. put up something, which is there to sell the paper.

So not just interesting conversation between so-and-so, good points made. It's, you know, I wanted to kill myself, whatever, you might have said. And I think with the life of Brian, it was just seen Monty Python, the church, and the two can never go together. Clearly, what's happening is that Python are exploiting people's religious beliefs to make fun of them. Yeah, so it was a clickbait, what we'd call now clickbait encounter. I think that was. Were you conscious before making life of Brian that it would, that there'd be a reaction?

And to what extent as well, because in America they're especially sensitive, did it run into problems there? Yeah. We were aware, and as we were writing it, we made a difference to what we wrote and how we wrote it. We did a lot of research about the period. of the Holy Land, and particularly about the search for the Messiah. That was documented in history and all that. So we made sure that we, we had some historical evidence, made sure that we didn't make fun of Jesus.

And so it meant that actually we had to get rid of some quite funny ideas. One was, St. Peter trying to book a table for the last supper. You know, 12 people, please. Yeah, when you want Friday? Friday, 12 on Friday, you must be joking. I can do you a Thursday, but it would have to be, that would be three tables of four, I can do you, and all that. No, no, we all want to be together.

Well, sure, Monday, that's a quiet day. Okay, it's Monday. And can we all be on one side of the table, please? You know, we have to get this out of our system. But we realize if you put that in there, then that is doing you. what people will sort of get you for, just making jokes about something which moves people greatly. The crucifixion was quite a difficult thing to do.

But then again, if you read the history of the period, that was the way burglars of people who just broken the law in some way were dealt with. In long lines of crucifixion, it wasn't just Jesus who was crucified. So, you know, we had to assume that people understood that this, there was a historical basis. So when we were writing it, that was important. It was important to us to cover those bases. And we'd done our research quite well for the interview with Mugridge and the Bishop of Southwark. But they just treated us like sort of errant schoolboys.

It was you and John Cleese. And John Cleese, yeah, yeah. You sort of volunteered to be, to sort of present the case? Well, I'd gone along to help John. I assumed that John would do most of the heavy. lifting because he's very good and he's got a lawyer's mind and he's very clear on these things. I would go along as

Mr. Nice guy saying, well, we just, you know, we were trying to sort of write comedy and all that. But it turned out that I got very, very angry actually. I've never seen myself in quite so, you know, unself-consciously cross. And I listen to it now and I hear

Malcolm Muggery's talking about a little 10th-rate film and all that sort of stuff and I was batting it back quite strongly. You saw you with withering sarcasm, you say, well I can see you've watched you with an open mind. Yes, that's right. Yes. I mean a lot of, the life of Brown really is about modern day Britain in a way. All the characters

are sort of characters you'd find in the country. You know, the pompous people and all that. And they're sort of carrying the crosses and all that. And Terry Jones is being very decent and processions going up and he says to Eric who's cross, look, let me take that for you for a bit. I can see you're having a bit of struggle.

Oh, thank you, thank you very much, thank you. He takes the cross and Eric just rushes off, you know, and you don't hear him again. Excuse me, excuse me, and there's a sort of public schoolboy who's a centurion. Come on, get in line. This isn't my cross, I think it's one of my, I don't know, one of my favorite lines in the film.

This isn't my cross. Oh, yeah, get on with it. Terry gets crucified, you know. Little things like that, sort of sharp talk and, you know, people sort of getting run over somebody else, very much present day. And did it have problems getting distributed in America? Or how much pushback was there over there?

What we had was on the first night, various religious groups protesting against it but it was every religious group you had the Catholics, you had the Jews, you had the Protestants so it was a really ecumenical outrage which was quite good. Unifying project in a way. Yes, it brought people together in their hatred of this film

which they hadn't seen because they're telling people not to see it. This is the ridiculous thing, you know. You mustn't see this film because you won't like it. Well, come you see it. No, no, no, you can't see it. Then you might like it. Barmy, very pythonic, really.

When you think back to writing comedy and what works, well, there's this ever-present tension, isn't there? And we find it in our own time that things that would have been considered perhaps funny or appropriate are no longer considered funny or appropriate. But in general, you know, comedies are a release valve, isn't it? And we joke about things privately that we might not want to be seen to joke about publicly. I guess I'm wondering. whether you feel is that unavoidable and is there a what is your compass in attempting to

navigate the terrain of what's an appropriate level of tension and iconoclasm and when it's too much I mean I generally feel that comedy is underused and it's it's a very good form of reaction and protest and I just generally feel that nowadays if you do have a strong point of view and you are protesting, you haven't taken very seriously, which is sort of fair enough. But I think comedy shows that not only that what makes us laugh is that all of us are different and we all react in different ways, but there is not one single way of progressing forward. There's always going to be someone on the outside says, I don't believe in that, like

the Python thing, you're all individuals, the man at the back says, I'm not, there's always going to be that happening. and I think it defuses the sort of centralised view of how we all behave and how we should behave. So my feeling is that the best way of dealing with, whether it's Putin or Trump or anybody else, you might think you're having trouble with, is to try and mock them, actually.

I'm sure there's something in that. I think there's a broader point, though, which is more awkward. I remember being sent an essay once at university, It said it's all humor by its definition subversive. And I've sort of been thinking about off and on ever since. There's a sense in which comedy is subversive of authority, and that's helpful and feels virtuous and just. But comedy can also be subversive of morality in general.

And there is such a thing as people laughing at victims or laughing at the vulnerable. I'm not trying to be pious about it. I almost think comedies has no moral value, positive or negative. It's just an energy that infuses life. Well, if you say comedies about the differences in life and about acknowledging those differences, then you have to say, well, it's going to be some people are going to find physical differences or whatever.

Of course, for humour, and I mean, that just is it. That's just the way it is. And I don't think you can sort of say, well, humor's going to be used surgically and correct. and morally, justifiably, at every occasion. It can't be, you know, you're going to find people laughing at people for the wrong reasons or whatever you might think. I mean, I remember my father had a stammer, and it was quite a severe stammer, and I can

remember my friends at school would come up to the house, and if they didn't know him, they would be, and they wouldn't sort of laugh then and there, but later they'd laugh and and you'd find them going, oh, papa, palin, and all that sort of stuff, which was very hurtful, and, you know, that just is, that's the way it is. Most people don't stammer, so someone who has a stammer seems to be unusual. And I was put in the strange position of being asked by John Cleese if I would play a stammerer in a film, which is a fish called Wanda. And John said, look, I remember meeting your father, I know he had a stammer,

you understand what stammer's are, you would be able to portray a stammer, as it is, rather than just a comedy kind of bubba da-da-da. And I knew, you know, the various strains and stresses that my father was under. And I accepted the role largely because it was a very funny idea that there's this gang of awful people. And the one who has the final bit of vital information has a stammer. I mean, whether you like it or not, that's a funny idea. And indeed, in the end, many stammerers. thought that they have a sense of humour as well

and they can laugh at that. So I felt it was, you know, I could do that and rather than sort of say there's no such thing as a stammer bring stammerers out, it's there, we know about it, here it is in a film, it's an important part of a film, it's there for a comic reason. Anyway, the long and short of it was that afterwards various people who were trying to set up a stammering centre

for treatment of stammering in children, got in touch with me and said, look, would you be prepared to give your name to this? And I said, absolutely, because it was a chance to find out why it happens. At home, we never talked about it. We never analysed what my father went through. I never knew why he had a stammer, why it started. Now it's much more talked about, and I've learnt an awful lot about what my father must have gone through when he was young,

what stammeras do go through, how they want to be seen. And so I'm just saying that comedy can take you in a good direction, even though you're laughing at something which is different and unusual and may seem a bit cruel. Yes. And context is important. Your position in that, you know, the fact that you had to experience of it, all of these things play a role, I think.

Are you all right for a few more minutes? I'm aware we've been going for a little while. Yes, I've got to go in a short while, only I've got to go to the Kiropodist. Do you have a look at your feet? No, just for a drink. Yeah. Okay, well...

I mean, it's lovely talking... Well, motor through the next bit. Well, I did want to... You moved to Channel 5 at a certain point. Maybe this is a bit talking shop, but I always thought that... It was odd that the BBC hadn't managed to keep hold of you. Did you feel underloved?

No, not at all. Not at all. I mean, I value the BBC greatly. I'm an enormous supporter of the BBC. Not necessarily the way it behaves all the time, but I think about what's less appreciated, which is radio, the BBC World Service, which is being cut scandalously

because anywhere I've gone in the world, people say, oh, BBC, yes, we listen to that. That's why we know about what. happening to our government. So, I mean, there are good things, bad things. I had done about, what, we've done five or six long documentary series with the BBC. All I'd been well looked after, very well supported. It was just, I think, when it's done that much, the people who originally worked with

all that have gone, they've moved on, new people are coming in. It's not just Michael Palin doing travel shows. you've got other people wanting to do their stuff. And so the emphasis shifts slightly from giving you everything you want, saying, well, yes, you can do this, but you will have to have this, and we have to be sure that you do that in interference, which we hadn't had before. And so Brazil, I think, was the last one we did together.

But mainly it was just I drifted away from doing long television travel series, I did some acting and did some Python and... So you took a break, and then when you came back, it felt more... Well, when I came back, I'm frankly out of the blue because I got this call from somebody at Channel 5 and ITN saying, we have heard that there is a chance that you could get... We could get a film crew into North Korea. It's very rare, but things have changed there.

Would Michael Palian be prepared to come along and do it? So, of course, absolutely, no question. Yeah, I'd love to see North Korea. But they're quite different to the BBC long series. This was just three weeks in a country that had its own problems rather than travelling across frontiers and all that. So it just kind of out of the blue, because of North Korea, presented a way of doing travel shows again that I was happy with.

And I have to say that Channel 5 have been really good. and very supportive. We've done now four countries, I think. Did Nigeria, Venezuela, North Korea, and Iraq. In Iraq. Yeah, yeah. You've been saddled with... Yeah. This is really going to put your back up. He said.

The epithet, nice. Yeah. It's sort of a light motif. Is that the term? Through a lot of the coverage and the interviews, Michael Payne is so nice. Oh, God, yes. It's so nice. It's a bit double-edged, isn't it? We want to be friendly, don't we?

We don't want to be bland and saccharine and a bit sort of safe. John Cleese has said, you'll see this because it was in the program that was about you, Michael has put all his energy into being affable, and sometimes it's a little hard to find out what's going on underneath. Yeah. What's going on underneath? How could I be different from John Cleese? No, it's just, well, I'm generally a sort of conciliator.

I don't seek arguments, I don't seek opposition. Some do it very well. John does it very well. John thrives on argument, and he's very, very good at arguing. I'm not really. I kind of drift away. To me, it's very much about the person you're talking to, how you respond. And you have to be open and say, well, I don't know quite how this is going to go, but whatever.

And I do find that being reasonably open and encouraging people to talk is the best way of getting any response from anybody at all. So, I mean, I think nice is a kind of rather one sort of word. And I hate being called the nicest person. But then Gary Linekeh was called the nicest person in Britain for a while. He threw that off eventually. Yeah. Do you think, and it's an appropriate probably quality for a presenter. I suppose, what's the downside?

And maybe that if you're required to be not nice, that it's uncomfortable. And a bit, it's interesting, striking when you think about your encounter with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southern. In some ways, that was uncomfortable, it sounds like. But in other ways, that may have been a finest hour, but one of your moments that you should be proud of Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, well, you know what it's like. If you're on television and you've, I mean, if you're going around the world, you're speaking to people, meeting people, you can either have a view of your own,

which is there and you're trying to make sure that you can sort of explain this to people and make them realize, you know, what you're doing. Or you couldn't just go there as openly and nakedly as possible and find out what they think about you and what they want to talk about. Do you think that's true? Well, what I also think is that you sort of need to have, even if you're playing the straight man or you're the sounding board, you sort of need to have parameters, don't you? And you need to have some sort of sense of where the guardrails are. Of course, yeah, yeah. I mean, I suppose I admire those people who have more of a willingness to be awkward. And I sort of think, if the shit,

it's the fan, do you have it in you to sort of say, no, you know, here's where the boundaries are and actually you have to cultivate those qualities as well sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. I hope one would really. But I just think that you've got to be the way you are. I've always been interested in people. I've always been like to make friends rather than make enemies to find out what we agree together rather than what divides us.

That's just me since I was quite young. And as a result, I've always been quite popular because I get on with people. But you know the limits, you know, you wouldn't get on with people you really, who you felt were sort of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things. Of course you wouldn't. So it's not being kind of just bland and saying how well. It's just how you meet people, how you talk to people, the sort of people you tend to be with, the sort of people who tend to admire, the people you tend to read about, that's, you know, I think honesty is the best thing,

and I'm honestly a conciliator. Welcome back. Thank you for listening or watching, if you're watching, on Spotify. That was very enjoyable, and a pleasure to talk. to someone. It's always a thrill if it's someone I grew up with. I'm not exaggerating. I listened to that Monty Python album probably 10,000 times, mishearing a lot of it. I didn't even understand most of the jokes. And some of it is still funny. As I say, I checked. I watched the old sketches. Comedy tends not to age well. Am I right? Like Shakespeare, we love Shakespeare. It's powerful.

It's moving. It's insightful and psychologically complex. I'd argue it's not that funny. Like sometimes there's an amazing production that brings it to life. Comedy in general, Mark Twain is still quite funny. Dickens at times, some of the characters are quite funny, but a lot of sketches, especially old TV comedy, haven't held up that well. Python is still funny, I'm telling you. And may even at times approach some of the value of art. I was once reading Franz Kafka in the penal colony. Have you ever read that story? story. It has some of the qualities of a Monty Python sketch. It's a sort of strange collision of surrealness. If you've read it, it's the one about Guy and they tattoo him to

death. It's horrific with the crimes. It's like there's an inmate or a prisoner at a prison and his punishment is to be tattooed to death with the crimes, I believe. Have you read that one, really? All you Kafka fans out there. But it's sort of a bit like a Python sketch where there's this mash-up of the absurd, the surreal, and the horrific. And also you get that sense from talking to Michael that he brought some of that whimsy, some of the surreal qualities, but maybe Cleese brought the anger,

and that's an ingredient that's important, sort of ramping up to that pitch of rage that could really surprise you. That's my kind of humour. Fear, rage, pain, anger. There's nothing as funny as that, is there? A cheeky line. He seemed to just slip past him.

He said, oh, cheeky line, sure. And then he kind of redirected into beer and having a drink. It wasn't like he was chopping out thick lines of gag. He wasn't honking. ropes of Charlie. We don't know that he was absolutely hoovering scarface like mountains of marching powder. Is any of that usable? I think so. Unlikely fans. This is on the list. How are you enjoying people at home viewers? People in Radio Land won't know this. We're still using the teleprompter. It's a totally different viewing experience.

Billy's not on the floor anymore. She's in a seat, like a normal person. She's remote controlling the teleprompter. Colony privilege. It doesn't make any sense. Johnny Cash, it says, on the teleprompter, because he was a fan, it turns out, of Monty Python. Was he a fan of weird weekends?

We'll never know. Why are you making it about you, Louis? I'm just wondering. I was once on a program with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It would be going too far to say, say he was a fan of what I do, but there was a clip of a space channel from an early Weird Weekends episode, and they showed it as part of the, it was an Irish chat show, and Desmond Tutu was there, and he found it funny. So I guess he was a fan. Archbishop Desmond

Tutu was a fan of weird weekends, kind of. It's hard to, there aren't big, well, no, I sound like Sean Penn. I was going to, there aren't those big stars like Johnny Cash and Elvis now. Yes, there are. Yes, there are. Timothy Shaliman. May. I wonder if he's a fan of weird weekends. I don't think so. Why do I keep mentioning weird weekends? I'm trying to make fun of myself because that's like 30 years ago and it sounds ridiculous. The new series is enjoyable.

It's amazing to see Michael aged 80, 81, cavorting, goat-like. I mean in the sense of being nimble, because goat can mean sexually, overactive. I don't mean that, but goat-like, cavorting, prancing in the wilds of Venezuela, underneath a waterfall at one point, on a boat, off a boat. I was watching thinking, like, I don't think I could, I mean, I, you know, I'm at the age where you get on a boat and you want someone to hold your hand. It doesn't feel very manly.

Can the fishing man hold my hand when I get on the boat? So there's that. It's available to watch and stream now on 5. He's also released a book of the same name that's available now. And I think he's planning another one. Long may he continue. Anyway, that's it for this week. All that's left to do are the credits.

The producer was Millie Chu. The assistant producer was Amelia Gill. The production manager was Francesca Bassett. The music in the series was by Miguel Di Oliver. the executive producer was Aaron Fellows. This is a Mindhouse production for Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete.

I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space. As it happens, neither of those dreams came true. I had to settle for being an award-winning. documentary maker and international celebrity. Ah well, we've all had big dreams and it's never too late to make them happen. This is your sign to stop holding back and go for it, especially if your dream is to run a business, because Shopify is making it easier than ever.

It's there to support you every step of the way, from designing your website to marketing to product descriptions to sales. The list goes on and on. So give it a shot. Turn those dreams into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Louie, L-O-U-I-S. That's Shopify.com slash Louis, L-O-U-I-S.