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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
Monty Python co-founder Michael Palin on eating camel meat, being recognized by Inuit in the Bering Strait, and becoming a sex symbol at 60 in his new travel series, "Sahara."
May 21, 2003 | The last time we saw Michael Palin in the African desert, he was nailed to a cross -- in a movie, that is: "Monty Python's Life of Brian." Some 24 years after crooning "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" while crucified alongside fellow Pythons John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman on a location shoot in Tunisia, Palin has returned to Africa for his latest in what's now a long line of televised travel series and books: "Sahara."
Although on previous journeys Palin has circumnavigated ("Around the World in 80 Days") and bisected ("Pole to Pole") the globe, ventured round the Pacific Rim ("Full Circle"), and retraced the multi-continental whereabouts of his favorite writer ("Hemingway Adventure"), "Michael Palin's Travels: Sahara" is in some ways his most ambitious effort yet. (The series airs on Bravo through June 1 -- check local listings -- and will soon be available on DVD. The accompanying book was published last month by St. Martin's Press.) After all, this is the most unforgiving natural environment on earth, and the journey comes at a time when Westerners (especially Britons and Americans) are not very popular in the Islamic world. And yet Palin still has time to cheerfully barter for yellow slippers in Morocco, watch a sheep sacrifice in Mali, play a marbles-like game using camel droppings in Mauritania, survey ancient Roman ruins in Libya, and trek for weeks without even a road to follow.
Of course Palin's travel series are but one component in an incredibly diverse career that started with what's easily the best comedy troupe of the last 50 years and that has seen him incarnated as a comedian, actor, novelist, playwright and political activist. Hell, he even demonstrated how to make homemade sausage during an appearance on "Late Night With David Letterman." Ever smiling and witty, Michael Palin gives dilettantes a good name.
More than that, Palin is also simply a nice guy, full of boundless good nature and optimism, whether his boat has run aground in Timbuktu or he's enduring yet another fan who wants to talk about a Python sketch from three decades ago. That's right: Michael Palin always looks on the bright side of life.
What's the most remote place you've ever been recognized as a member of Monty Python?
It did happen on a small island called Little Diomede in the Bering Strait, between Russia and Alaska. It's an utterly remote place, just a rock in the ocean with about 60 Inuit Eskimos who live there. Some Eskimos were gathered to take us across the strait in this whaleskin canoe. As we embarked to get on board, there was this clearing of throats, and I thought I was about to get this sort of Eskimo farewell or something. In fact, one of them points at me and says, "Hey! Aren't you the guy from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'?" They apparently had just seen the movie on satellite two nights before.
Is the Python legacy ever a burden to you, always having to smile when someone mentions a skit you've already heard about a thousand times?
Yes, it does happen, but I wouldn't say it's a burden. It's a tremendous relief, and quite a pleasure, that Python is still remembered. We thought it would be fairly transitory and replaced later by some other comedy show. I love that it's endured. Unfortunately, though, people expect me to remember all the sketches, and I never do. None of us do! I think we were at the Aspen Comedy Festival and there was a Python quiz they held. Even with all of us together, we couldn't get more than 60 percent right.
I must say that while watching "Sahara," I kept expecting you to stumble over a sand dune toward the camera and say, "It's..." like you did at the beginning of almost every "Flying Circus" episode.
It's very much "It's" territory. I remember the very first one on "Flying Circus." I scrambled out of the sea and up the sand of the south coast of England. And of course you may remember Python did a sketch called "Scott of the Sahara," a remake of "Scott of the Antarctic" in the Sahara. The leading actor had to act out of a trench because he was too tall for the love scenes.
Is there anything on your travels you've been asked to do and said "No way"?
The only thing I've ever refused to do is bungee-jump. That was in New Zealand. I'd just passed my 50th birthday, and I thought, "I don't need this." To plunge headfirst into the gorge wasn't very tempting. There are other things I've never wanted to do, but have always been persuaded by the director that it would be quite good if I had a go at it. Particularly with food -- I've eaten some very strange things. Food is used as a welcome; it's quite rude to turn it down. So I've eaten some odd things indeed.
Did you really eat camel in the Sahara? How does it taste?
Sure! There isn't much else to eat in these refugee camps of Algeria. It was actually very nice the first night, and then after about four nights it becomes slightly repetitive. Everything's supposed to taste like chicken, but it didn't in this case. It's sweetish meat, more like mutton.
