In 1969, the British comedy writer and performer Michael Palin, then building a career out of being extremely silly, did something utterly sensible: He quit his 40-cigarettes-a-day smoking habit and began keeping a diary instead.
Over the years, his meticulously maintained journals captured the rise of Monty Python — the hallowed sketch troupe he formed with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones — including the creation of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “Life of Brian.” Later, they chronicled a surprising career development, when Palin reinvented himself as an amiable presenter of travel documentaries, crossing the globe for acclaimed series like “Around the World in 80 Days.”
The first volume of his diaries, “The Python Years,” was published in 2006. The fourth, “There and Back,” will be released in the United States on Tuesday. In a video interview from his home in northwest London, Palin, 81, fielded questions about the four decades’ worth of life covered in his diaries and more. He’s come to expect this sort of inquisition.
“That’s the thing about publishing your diaries,” Palin said. “I have to be able to justify my behavior in my life in a way.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
How did quitting smoking lead you to start keeping a diary?
When I gave up smoking — it was virtually overnight — it was a quite extraordinary feeling of effective use of willpower. In the back of my mind, I thought, how else can I use this newly enlivened willpower? Keeping a diary must have been the first thing that came into my head.
You’re quite evangelical about the benefits.
Everyone should try it. You don’t have to be a great writer. Just writing down what happened the day before — it’s quite good for you. To define what your life is about. The diaries constantly surprise me, how I completely contradict myself. One day I’ll write, “No more traveling — I love England!” And two days later, I’ll sign a contract to go to Brazil.
In 1975 you wrote that Python was finished.
When I made that entry, I thought that was it. Everyone wanted to go out and do their own thing after “Holy Grail.” But then when we were on the publicity tour, Eric Idle came up with this wonderful title, “Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory,” which we all thought was very, very funny. That got us thinking, and that led to “Life of Brian.”
The new volume covers 1999 to 2009, so it includes the period when you first started publishing edited versions of your diaries. It sounds like Idle was upset by them.
The great thing about Python was, when we were all together, any disputes we had were dealt with fairly briskly. I don’t get to talk to Eric as much as I’d like to. Eric’s brilliant and very funny and lovely. It’d be nice if we could all sit down and just be as we were when we were writing the comedy shows. We don’t do that, really, which is a pity because I’m very fond of them all, and what we did as Pythons are some of the happiest and most rewarding times of my life.
Has there been much feedback on the diaries from the other Pythons?
I think the best suggestion came from Terry Jones: The next time I do my diaries and the Pythons are in there, they should be allowed to write footnotes. Cut me down to size.
It’s great when Cleese turns up in them. Your onscreen chemistry seems to reflect your relationship in life.
It does, in an interesting way. A lot of the things that we did that people enjoyed were scenes where I would annoy John. “This is a cheese shop?” “Yes sir, finest in the district.” It’s a quite nice relationship, but it’s a bit like that in real life. John is a Cambridge man, and he occasionally found the Oxford Pythons [Jones and Palin] a little bit woolly-minded. John and I could play up the difference between us, if you like. John can be cruel and I can be a bit soppy, and the mix of the two works really well.
Are friends and family members self-conscious around you now, knowing they might end up in future volumes?
I did worry I’d lose friends. But, well, there’s no revelations of mass drug taking or orgies or anything. Because I haven’t been to any, really.
I do deal with quite painful things. There’s a lot about my sister, Angela, who suffered from very, very serious depression and took her own life. You can’t not mention it in the diary. I didn’t want to erase my sister from history — quite the opposite.
I picked up your first volume the day my father passed. Nothing says “life goes on” like reading someone else’s diaries.
I think it’s important to talk about loss. My wife passed away 19 months ago. We were co-conspirators for 60 years. It’s a strange world without her, and avoiding the subject or pretending otherwise wouldn’t help. Emotions and emotional reactions can be forgotten. It’s good to write them down.
The new volume also covers the death of your friend George Harrison, in 2001. Harrison said that he thought Python inherited the spirit of the Beatles, did you ever talk with him about that?
We did. The Beatles broke up in 1969, which was when Python did its first show. George claimed to have sent a fan letter to Python after the very first of the shows went out. I’ve got a feeling that someone at the BBC threw the letter away. “You’re George Harrison? Well, I’m the Duke of Edinburgh!”
There was this sort of accord between musicians and Python. Python was a bit like music. It was very self-expressive. Later we found out Elvis Presley had been a Python fan, which is just so unbelievable. To think, Elvis might’ve talked about the Knights Who Say “Ni!” To have heard him just pronouncing “Ni”!
It actually predates your diaries, but you were briefly a pop lyricist, weren’t you?
I was asked [by the arranger and singer Barry Booth] if I could write a song that Roy Orbison might want to sing. So I wrote “The Last Time I Saw You Was Tomorrow.”
It’s a lovely lyric. You might have been Hal David.
It was played to Roy Orbison. Roy didn’t immediately add it to his repertoire. In fact, he never added it to his repertoire.
Cleese once pointed out that many of the Python sketches you wrote with Terry Jones open with a pan across the English countryside. It seems to anticipate your later career.
I loved getting out and about. I was born in Sheffield, a big sort of gray industrial city at that time, and yet around it is the most beautiful countryside. I loved going off on my bike, traveling around there. So that gave me a sense that there was a world out there, which fascinated me.
Terry Jones shared my feelings about the importance of landscape in cinema. John and Graham would quite happily have done “Holy Grail” in a studio.
It feels like there’s a link between the 27-year-old version of you who dove headfirst into the Thames for the Fish-Slapping Dance sketch, and the version of you in your travel documentaries. There’s an adventurousness — an eagerness for extreme situations.
Absolutely. After Python, everything else had to have that spirit of adventure — it had to be a challenge. “80 Days” was a different kind of travel program. I wasn’t there as a reporter; I wasn’t there as a sociologist or an anthropologist. I was just there as Michael Palin trying to get through a seven-day journey.
I had a very comfortable childhood, really. I went to public school and ended up in Oxford. Things were sort of nice and reasonably comfortable. Yet there was always some part of me wanting to test myself with something that I’d never done before.
In your ninth decade, is there sufficient silliness in your life?
I try to show my grandchildren there are laughs to be had. I’m just an old ham with them. Things like the Fish-Slapping Dance — they love it. Though I think they’re slightly embarrassed by it.
You’ve got to maintain that ability to make yourself laugh and make others laugh in whatever circumstances. To remain as silly as possible is quite important to me. People ask me, “What do you want on your tombstone?” I want one that says, “Gone to lunch.” To be silly after I’m dead — that’s quite important, I think.
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