London Academy of Media Film TV

A COMEDY START

On 5th May, 1943, in an area of Sheffield called Broomhill, Michael Edward Palin was born to Edward Moreton Palin, who worked as an Engineer at a steel firm, and Mary Rachel Lockhart. He was the second child of the couple, having an older sister to whom he was very close until she committed suicide in 1986.

Palin began his education at Birkdale Preparatory School where he had his first taste of acting, playing the part of Martha Cratchit in the school performance of A Christmas Carol. After Birkdale, Palin moved on to Shrewsbury School. Palin wrote and performed a comedy monologue of Shakespeare for his mother at the age of 10, maybe the first hint of his future success. When Palin finished school, he went to Brasenose College, Oxford, to read modern history. He wrote and performed comedy material with Robert Hewison for a Christmas party, which was seen by Terry Jones, who joined the team of writers.

FOUNDATIONS FOR FUTURE SUCCESS

When he was a member of the Brightside and Carbrook Co-Operative Society Players, Palin won an acting award at a Co-Op drama festival. After that award, he started gaining his reputation as an actor. Palin and Jones also performed in the Oxford Revue. In 1965, after graduation, Television Wales and the West had a comedy pop show named Now! and Palin became a presenter. Jones was writing a documentary for theater about sex through the ages at the same time and he contracted Palin to help him. They eventually abandoned the project but the foundations for a writing duo were laid. They began writing for numerous BBC television programmes including The Frost Report, alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman, who would later become the well-renowned group ‘The Monty Python’, along with Terry Gilliam, who was an American citizen at the time.

MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS

Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a huge success during its time, consisting of comedy sketches making ridiculous parodies of real life situations. Palin was involved in the writing of sketches such as ‘Spam’ and ‘The Lumberjack Song’, and played a variety of different parts in many Python sketches. The Pythons also made three feature-length films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983).

Palin and Jones continued to work together after the end of the Monty Python series in 1974, and Palin starred in the 1977 film written by Terry Gillam called Jabberwocky. Amongst other films, he also appeared in A Fish Called Wanda, a comedy film written by fellow Python, John Cleese, in 1984. This appearance won Palin the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, however the sequel, Fierce Creatures, released one year later was not so successful.

TRAVELLING THE WORLD

In addition to appearing in fictional productions, Palin has made many travel documentaries during his career. Nowadays, he is probably more well known for these. The first documentary he made was shown in the series Great Railway Journeys of the World in 1980 for the BBC, for which he traveled the length of the UK by train. The first of his full travel programmes was released in 1989, and entitled Around the World in 80 Days, when he followed the path of the Jules Verne story as closely as possible while using no aircraft. This cemented his reputation as a travel journalist and this series, along with many of his others, has been broadcast all around the world.

PERSONAL LIFE

Palin has been married to Helen Gibbins since 1966 and they have three children together. He is still making documentaries to this day and has unofficially been referred to as “Britain’s nicest man”.

Acting can take you many places – try acting today at London Academy

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