The Python Years
The funny, warm and moving diaries of a man at the centre of one of the world’s most influential comedy troupes.
Michael Palin’s diaries begin when he was newly married and struggling to make a name for himself in the world of television comedy. But Monty Python was just around the corner . . .
This engaging volume is a window into the world of Monty Python, from the group’s early cult success to the global superstardom that followed. Amongst tales from the making of THE HOLY GRAIL and LIFE OF BRIAN are stories of the three-day week and the various trials of a peripatetic life, told with Michael’s trademark warmth and good humour.
Michael Palin’s diaries begin when he was newly married and struggling to make a name for himself in the world of television comedy. But Monty Python was just around the corner . . .
This engaging volume is a window into the world of Monty Python, from the group’s early cult success to the global superstardom that followed. Amongst tales from the making of THE HOLY GRAIL and LIFE OF BRIAN are stories of the three-day week and the various trials of a peripatetic life, told with Michael’s trademark warmth and good humour.
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Reviews
His showbiz observations are so absorbing . . . Palin is an elegant and engaging writer
Accomplished . . . If Palin's comic genius is a given, this is a more rounded portrait of the decade which saw the Pythons become icons. Our favourite TV explorer shows us the workings of an unstoppable machine
Palin's style is so fluid, and his sincerity so palpable, that it is often easy to underestimate just how talented he is as a comedian, broadcaster and a writer . . . [the diaries] are just too good and he is too modest
Delightful and often extraordinarily funny . . . An entertaining and at times deeply moving read
If anyone writes a diary purely for the joy of it, it is Michael Palin . . . This combination of niceness, with his natural volubility, creates Palin's expansiveness
Palin's steady eye, contemplative bent and instinct for honest appraisal make him the perfect chronicler of a frequently insane period which saw the Monty Python team become the most celebrated comedians in the world
A real delight to read
A slow burn, revealing its pleasures only gradually, and allowing readers the warm glow of hindsight denied its writer . . . This book will make the perfect present for those comedy obsessives of a certain age, who will know exactly what it is long before they have unwrapped it