Palin plans new travel series

Michael Palin has revealed that he's planning another travel series – but this time intends to stay closer to home.

‘It’s hard to top the Himalayas,’ he said. ‘so we’re thinking of something slightly nearer home.

‘We’re thinking Europe, possibly Eastern Europe. Although it’s still in the very early stages of planning.

‘You’ve got to promise not to tell anyone,’ he told the audience at a charity show in London’s West End last night. ‘We’ll be filming next year, and it should be out in 2007.

‘I was thinking of retiring,’ the 62-year-old traveller added. ‘But what would I do? Probably just travel.’

During his talk, Palin also revealed that the Knights Who Say ‘Ni’ from Monty Python And The Holy Grail were based on a master at Shrewsbury School, where he was educated.

He said the teacher, who loved books, would stalk around the public school’s library, making strange, muted ‘Ni’ sounds.

Holy Grail was also one of the few occasions the mild-mannered comedian lost his legendary cool.

It was during filming of a scene in which he played a mud-eater, a peasant who threw himself on the ground and shovelled huge quantities of mud into his mouth.

The substance was actually chocolate, but inevitably Palin scooped up handfuls of real mud at the same time – and director Terry Jones made him do the awful scene half a dozen times.

After the last take, which Palin felt was perfect, Jones told him his back was in shot as he crawled out of scene.

‘I just lay on my back in the mud, arms flailing, shouting, “I don’t care, I don’t care,” Palin remembered. ‘John [Cleese] said it was the only time he remembered me losing my temper.’

The event, at the Prince Of Wales Theatre, was to raise funds for the Peter Cook Foundation.

The charity, set up by Cook’s widow Lin in 2000,  had recently faced questions after it was revealed that none of the £250,000 raised in its name had yet been given to good causes.

But Palin said that the fund was about to open a music therapy centre in the Roundhouse in Camden, North London – an historically significant performance space currently undergoing a major refurbishment, and due to reopen in the spring.

Published: 7 Nov 2005