Michael Palin: "The world is an absurd and silly place."

To me, Palin's travelogues are among his finest achievements.

Michael Palin: ‘The world is an absurd and silly place’ ... This summer’s Monty Python reunion was joyous, says Michael Palin. But that doesn’t mean he wishes he had stuck to comedy – or Hollywood, by Stephen Moss (The Guardian)

... “My view of the world, really,” Palin says, “is that if you screw your eyes up and look at the world, it is an absurd and extraordinarily silly place, with everyone taking themselves very seriously.” That may be the clue to the Palin screen persona: the little man bullied by self-appointed autocrats who fights back. By all accounts, his engineer father could be something of a martinet; his relationship with John Cleese (who calls him “Mickey”) appears to be that of headmaster and errant pupil; and several of the characters he has played, notably Jim Nelson in Alan Bleasdale’s TV drama GBH, have been seemingly insignificant men who respond heroically when faced with a crisis.

In Python, he was often the put-upon fellow towered over, physically and sometimes intellectually, by Cleese. But in the end, he gives as good as he gets.