Michael Palin

Sir Michael Edward Palin KCMG CBE FRGS is an English actor, comedian, writer and television presenter. He was a member of the comedy group Monty Python. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with fellow Python member Terry Jones. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam. Since 1980 he has made a number of travel documentaries. In 2018, he visited North Korea; documenting his visit in a series broadcast on Channel 5.

About Michael Palin in brief

Summary Michael PalinSir Michael Edward Palin KCMG CBE FRGS is an English actor, comedian, writer and television presenter. He was a member of the comedy group Monty Python. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with fellow Python member Terry Jones. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam. Since 1980 he has made a number of travel documentaries. In 2018, he visited North Korea; documenting his visit to the isolated country in a series broadcast on Channel 5. He received a knighthood in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to travel, culture and geography. Palin was born in Ranmoor, Sheffield, the second child and only son of Edward Moreton Palin and Mary Rachel Lockhart. His father was a Shrewsbury and Cambridge-educated engineer working for a steel firm. His maternal grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Lockhart Ovey, DSO, was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1927. His sister Angela was nine years older than he was. Despite the age gap the two had a close relationship until her suicide in 1987. His nephew is the theatre designer Jeremy Herbert Palin is an agnostic. After finishing university in 1965, Palin became a presenter on comedy pop-film show Now! The West of Wales. In 1966, Palin married Helen Gibbins, whom he first met in 1959 on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk. The couple have three children and four grandchildren. Daughter Rachel is a BBC TV director, whose work includes MasterChef: The Professionals.

Son William is Director of Conservation at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London and oversaw the 2018–19 restoration of the Painted Hall. A photograph of William as a baby briefly appeared in Monty Pythons and the Holy Grail as \”Sir Not-appearing-in-this-this photo-Sir-Michael-Edward-Palin-and-the-Holy Grail as Sir-Sir Michael-Edward Palin and the Holy Grail as a baby. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians’ Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. In the same year Palin joined the Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Players and first gained fame when he won an acting award at a Co-op drama festival. He also performed and wrote in the Oxford Revue with Jones. Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing Ripping Yarns. They were also in the team of writers for The Frost Report, whose other members included Frank Muir and Billy Cotton. They collaborated in writing lyrics for an album by Barry Booth called Diversions. They also wrote for The Illustrated Weekly Huddshow, The Billy Cotton Band, and The Weekly Weekly Band and The Illustrated Illustrated Weekly Band. Palin’s teleplay for the 1987 BBC television drama East of Ipswich was later fictionalised in Palin’s teleplay. He is the President of the Royal Geographical Society.