Movies: Michael Palin

Following the success of the 1979 show and the financial benefits accruing to Amnesty from the spin-off movie, TV special and record albums – Cleese, Lewis and Walker planned the next show to be a more spectacular event. Cleese focused on broadening ...

Eric Olthwaite is so boring that his family all leave home to escape him. Then one day he is accidentally caught up in a bank robbery and discovers that the robber shares his interests in shovels, black pudding and rainfall so they team up to make da...

The Fringe, Fame and Me is the story of how a small Scottish arts festival that began 75 years ago this year became a national institution – a crucible where new stars are forged, careers made, and sometimes, dreams dashed. Told by the stars who firs...

Celebrating the relaunch of Film4 as a free-to-air TV channel, Channel4 counts down their list of the fop 50 films to see before you die, as compiled by film critics and personalities....

This documentary follows the evolution of the British sketch comedy troupe that redefined humor and shaped an entire generation of American comics, focusing especially on their conquest of the American comedy scene,...

Ten years ago exactly, more or less, give or take a day or two, six young men sat down, or maybe stood, or perhaps some of them just lounged, and wrote the first episode of a new series called Owl Stretching Time. They were called Graham Chapman , Jo...

A BAFTA award winning drama about a mistake when buying a dress for his mistress leads Howard to look again at his wife....

A look back at the origins of the ground breaking BBC comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus....

Adapted from a play written by two Monty Python vets, this toothy satire launches with a tragic accident at Chumley's chocolate factory when hapless manager Ian Littleton (Tyler Butterworth) accidentally knocks several employees into a huge chocolate...

Sir Clive Chiddingfield invites his family to his birthday party at lonely Moorstones Manor but in the course of the evening half of those present are murdered one by one and the remaining survivors except for Lady Chiddingfield each admit to being t...

When Captain Fred Roberts discovered a printing press in the ruins of Ypres, Belgium in 1916, he decided to publish a satirical magazine called The Wipers Times - "Wipers" being army slang for Ypres. Full of gallows humour, The Wipers Times was poign...

The outrageous life of the American dancer of the 1920s, Isadora Duncan, whom Ken Russell described as "part genius and part charlatan"....

Sir Kevin Orr is anxious to return the Sacred Claw of the Naga hills given him as a child by his uncle Jack but warned that unless it is returned before his sixtieth birthday the curse of the claw will kill him. He sets sail to return it but falls fo...

Documentary about the life and career of a comic genius, Peter Sellers....

Michael Palin heads for rural Pennsylvania and Maine to explore the extraordinary life and work of one of America's most popular and controversial painters, Andrew Wyeth. Fascinated by his iconic painting Christina's World, Palin goes in search of th...

Comedian Rik Mayall died suddenly on 9 June 2014. Mayall's blend of rocket-fuelled physical comedy, surrealism, subversive satire and pompous punk wit left a body of work that spanned four decades. Mayall's characters include the Black Country's inve...

When EMI refused to produce Monty Python's Life of Brian, George Harrison founded Handmade Pictures so that he could see the film. This is the story of him and Handmade Films....

Terry Gilliam is interviewed by Melvyn Bragg in this 1991 episode of The South Bank Show (1978). Gilliam speaks of his history with the British comedy group Monty Python and is joined by Michael Palin in discussing his films including Jabberwocky, Ti...

An documentarian from the BBC visits the set of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). This documentary shouldn't be viewed as a making of the film, but rather a goof-off session that is simply there to conjure up laughter....

From ‘something completely different’ to icons of comedy and national treasures, this is a collection of rarely-seen Monty Python moments from the BBC archives, following the group’s encounters with ‘Auntie’ over the past 50 years....