Michael Palin: "I don't remember having any sort of idea then that this was a whole, completely different kind of show that was going to change everything. It was obviously unusual, and certainly the idea of breaking up the sketches and all that was a bit different, but basically we thought of it at the time as being a group of writer/performers who had a very similar sense of humour, quite a good track record and sparked off each other very well, though in many ways it was still quite conventional."

Michael Palin: (On the German shows) "There was a wonderful mutual bafflement and bewilderment throughout."

Michael Palin: "The actual philosophy of Python, if you like, and what it ought to mean, was always done by the shorter members."

Michael Palin: "Things with Python that have become kind of legendary were, at the time, very uncomfortable and you felt that somehow the actual effort, the logistics of doing them, had in the end compromised the material itself....So there were times when we did think we were getting it wrong, other times when it just felt right....But, as a whole, my best memories [of Holy Grail] are of huge effort and long, quite uncomfortable days, without any feeling that this was actually going to work."

Michael Palin: "We begin by trying to do the Python quiz in The Complete Monty Python's Fan Book. The questions are incredibly hard and the entire Python team scores about 60 per cent."

Michael Palin: "I couldn't believe it afterwards when we finished the discussion in which they'd both [-- Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark --] said how pathetic, hopeless, meaningless and juvenile [Life of Brian] was, instead of there being any sort of division between us afterwards, they came up as though we'd all been 'show-biz' together, out doing an entertainment, with the bishop saying, 'That all seemed to go very well.' I hadn't realised they weren't actually being vindictive, they were just performing to the crowd. They were doing what they were supposed to do, they didn't want to be upstaged as performers, and of course it all made sense then."

Michael Palin: "I think in the end...[The Meaning of Life] always remained a film of some very strong material looking for a shape and the shape we eventually gave it was quite nicely decorated by Terry, but it was a kind of intellectual idea rather than a strong personal narrative."

Michael Palin: "Part of the problem was that once Python gets seen as a legend which has to be celebrated, the humour that made Python goes out the window because we are becoming a victim of all the things we were attacking....That's why I've always felt Python was at its best when it was just the group of us. It was quite a self-contained momentum. It couldn't be exported, it couldn't be grafted on to anyone else nor could anyone else be grafted on to Python."

Michael Palin: "The Python shows have established themselves. God knows why, but they really have, in all their rough, sometimes clumsy, sometimes almost unfunny way, all these shows are still replayed and, despite the inadequacies that we felt when we made them, people seem to like every single bit of them, and the same with the films."

Michael Palin: "Python skipped around all over the place, it went in all sorts of directions and that came from six writers and six performers and that feeling of freedom. You can watch a Python show or film and it can go in almost any direction. It can be rather sweet and it can be rather whimsical and it can be rather charming and then the next moment it can be very hard and vicious and aggressive; it's something that you just don't see in many other forms of comedy. That's probably one of the reasons why Python has survived; it's very light on its feet, it moves very quickly from one idea to another and it seems to use up so many ideas in each show."

Monty Python's Tour of Canada: Punch article by Michael Palin and Terry Jones, 1972.

Time Bandits: Just the Dialogue (by Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam)

Transcribed from Radio Times, 15-21 April 1995, pp 17-20.

FROM THE RADIO TIMES:

SOME WOULD JOKE that ex-Python Michael Palin is the ideal choice to launch the BBC's mental health season. But since his sister's suicide he, more than most, understands the darker side of the mind.

There is a poignant background to Michael Palin's introduction to one of the first programmes in the BBC's nine-month mental health season States of Mind: his sister Angela, an aspiring actress, was a depressive who committed suicide nine years ago, aged 52. It is not a subject he has broached in public often, but now he says: "Anything that helps us know more is a good thing." His usually cheerful nature is subdued as he recalls Angela's death. She had three grown-up children, was separated from her husband and staying with him at his north London home. "We'd been to the cinema the night before. The next day she went to a garage, fixed rubber tubing to the exhaust of the car and gassed herself. I'll never know the reason why.

"She was so beautiful, extremely capable, bubbly, dressed well. No outsider would ever have realised how she felt. Growing up she had seemed all right, but in those days - after two wars when the whole world had gone mad - a bit of odd behaviour in the home seemed unimportant and was treated by 'Snap out of it! Pull yourself together.' But those who feel inadequate within themselves can get into such depression they're incapable of saying 'Let's have a good meal,' 'see a film,' or 'go on holiday.' In fact, those suggestions rub in the fact that there is a way of having a good time, but they're not privy to it. Seeing others enjoy themselves makes them feel even more inferior and unable to cope. It's not surprising the peak times for suicide are Christmas and spring, when most of us are celebrating.

"I didn't notice the degree of her depression until about two years before her death. She went to therapists, but no one could tell her what was wrong. She'd had post-natal depression, and that may have been the start of it, but I don't know. I tried to do everything, but it's not a clinical, physical illness where a reason can be found from blood tests or observation, like cancer or a heart attack. Even after she died, no one gave any explanation. I wanted to ask my parents if there was anything in her childhood. My mother couldn't discuss it, which was her way of coping. Obviously she was pretty badly hurt and there was no comforting doctor to put his arm round her and say, 'This has happened to lots of people, and here is what causes it.' One is left with a feeling it must have been some dreadful mistake. There can be a certain shame, but I didn't feel guilty, which is sometimes the reaction. I was confused and helpless and, in retrospect, pretty ill-informed. We need more research. I don't even know if it's hereditary or not."

If it does, does it worry him, I wonder, that she killed herself at the age he is to become next month? "Fleetingly, but I don't think we had the same temperament." She was also quite a remote figure to him as a child, being nine years older, and the atmosphere at home was a little strained anyway. His father was a sales manager for an engineering firm in Sheffield, whose dream was to be a musician. "The balance between my mother and father was interesting. She was very open and he seemed more closed, yet I know that wasn't the whole truth. He was difficult, not particularly happy and had a bad stammer. If only he'd had access to treatment he might have coped better [Palin has put money into a school for stammer sufferers in London]. It was never mentioned at home, but it made him short- tempered and frustrated. He'd fight with waiters as a matter of course. I'd cringe and go pink. I was a shy boy. I saw the way my mother was agreeable and made friends, and he didn't. And I thought it's a hostile world out there and much better to have a few friends rather than lots of enemies."

Although his own agreeable nature is infectious, he says he does get "down" occasionally. "I realise one can't understand why one should be that way. It doesn't always relate to an incident or circumstances - just a feeling. I've occasionally contemplated walking to the end of the plank, but never jumped off. There are times in the middle of the night when I wonder how I'm going to face the next day. Then I look out of the window and see it as another challenge. Depression doesn't last long with me because I'm generally optimistic. It is ironic, though, that my sister, who killed herself, looked sane and I appeared mad because I was one of the Monty Python team. I wrote stuff like the Spanish Inquisition bursting into someone's living room, which would not be considered the product of an ordered mind. The Pythons were lucky because we were allowed to let our imaginations run riot and were paid for indulging our subconscious. It was like group therapy. We made various connections we wouldn't have dared on our own."

Celebrity, he believes, creates its own madness. "The more power or fame you have the quicker you drift from reality. Everyone is terribly nice, not because of what you are, but because of who you are. The Royal Family is a supreme example. They're human beings after all, believe it or not, yet are treated in such an obsequious way by hangers-on it's hardly surprising they lose touch. Actors and actresses are also required to conform to a certain image and often believe their own legend. When they break out, like Oliver Reed or Vanessa Redgrave, they are condemned, but what I admire about those two is they refuse to be made into some symbol. It's so important for us all to be ourselves, warts and all, even though you might be considered a bit odd. We're programmed to conform from a very early age, which restricts us and causes more tensions than it relieves. We're encouraged to suppress the subconscious and beware of imagination because it's destructive to the behaviour codes we've developed. So most people lead fairly boring, monotonous lives and a jester in society becomes quite a privileged figure. But there's a jester in all of us and it should be encouraged. Repression is a recipe for more problems than it solves.

"But maybe nearly everyone is mad today because of the competitiveness of life. Our society is pretty crazy. We hurtle around quite cheerfully at 80mph in objects that could mow people down. We eat and drink too much. We're led to believe there is an upward curve of progress that will deliver us a more content, fulfilled and happy life, but it doesn't seem to be happening. One set of pressures is traded for another. The positive side is that creativity can arise from what we call madness. It is 'mad' people who create the most beautiful classical music, write the best novels or poetry, and provide some of the greatest comedy. Look at Tony Hancock - he killed himself, didn't he? - or dear Spike Milligan. Both depressives. But at the same time as he was being driven mad by the pressure of writing Goon shows, I was on the receiving end, being liberated, encouraged and inspired by them. People used to call the Pythons mad and then write saying, 'All those laughs you gave me when I was feeling down preserved my sanity.'"

Even so, he was known as the "normal" Python and Clare McGinn, producer of Don't Fence Me In [the Radio 4 documentary in which Palin examines the stigma and myths of madness], says she chose him to present "because he has a reputation as the most normal person around." "The 'normal' Python?" he says. "That's like being called the less violent of the Kray twins. That dread word 'normal'. There's a little bit of madness in me, I'm glad to say. It's prevented me doing responsible things, like being head of house at school or working in a bank. It's why I've been able to earn my living as a writer for 30 years." I tread gently here, because it is such a cliche, but one has to mention his nice guy image which, he says with relief, began to wane last year when his first stage play, The Weekend, starring Richard Wilson, was heavily criticised.

"I got the feeling that newspaper editors were fed up with the image of a man who never lost his temper - which they had created anyway, and which my family regard as being blatantly untrue. There was a feeling of 'shake him up a bit' and 'find out what annoys him'. Like most people, I'm a combination of cantankerous and unhappy and happy and pleasant. I prefer to like people rather than waste time hating."

He is still happily married to Helen, the girl he met on a Southwold beach when he was 16, and has lived in the same house for 25 years (although he has bought the adjoining two). Books and videos from his two BBC travel programmes (Around the World in 80 Days, and Pole to Pole) have made him a multi-millionaire and given him a higher profile than his Python colleagues. "People identify with me since the travels. It's not something I set out to achieve, but it's part of the appeal. I'm not some remote star figure. I'm a person who gets dirty and has diarrhoea on dhows. I think people like me can help in beneficial causes, which is why I'm glad to be talking about something useful, rather than when I'm normally interviewed flogging my wares."

His next travels take him to the Pacific rim - "I don't know why. It certainly isn't the money. I have enough to retire on. The books have sold so well I feel slightly guilty. You have to make up your mind when you earn that sort of money whether you want to live in Tuscany, buy a yacht or build swimming pools. The family [he has three children, the youngest is 20] laugh when I go into that mode. They keep my body on the ground, not just my feet. It's a constantly changing relationship, with children growing up, Helen and I becoming more set in our ways. You think you see yourself clearly, but you never really know. I notice how much like me my children are, and it worries me dreadfully. I think they ought to be themselves and wonder, 'Have I been that dominant?' There's a dialogue between all of us, which is excellent, but they're slightly embarrassed by a Dad with loot."

Soon he starts filming a sequel to A Fish Called Wanda, provisionally titled Death Fish Two, and earlier this month he published his first novel, Hemingway's Chair. "It's good", he says, in a sudden uncharacteristic outburst of self-praise. "I've done modesty," he explains. "People didn't believe it because they think I'm just trying to be nice. Oh, please don't use that word. Working is my therapy and keeps me sane. It does me good to have a bit of shock treatment now and again, to try to become a playwright, a novelist, or travel to a part of the world I've never seen. Varying my routine keeps my mind reasonably clear and fresh."

And avoids the need for psychiatrists, about whom he is a little sceptical. "There's a lot of jargon that tends to be spread quite thinly as justification for the serious activities of social workers who can, for example, take children from their parents in the middle of the night and allege sexual abuse. You have to be so careful about that sort of thing. Psychiatrists were unable to help my sister. It's a very young science and the best ones are still asking questions, rather than delivering certainties. I think that's the most one can do: keep asking questions."