theartsdesk Q&A: Author-actor Michael Palin

Michael Palin (b 1943) has had - is having - an amazing multi-pronged career. One of the original members of the Monty Python team, he has subsequently reinvented himself as a prolific author, a film and television actor and, more recently, a hugely popular and successful travel show presenter and writer. Palin has a lot to celebrate these next few weeks with the publication of the second volume of his diaries, Halfway to Hollywood, and, next month, Python's 40th birthday (can it really be possible?) Tomorrow Palin is giving a public interview in Ely Cathedral for the Cambridge Film Festival; on 15 October he will be honoured, along with his four surviving fellow Pythons, at New York's Ziegfeld Theater. In the meantime, this tireless globetrotter discourses, over tea in Turin, on all of the above.

Michael Palin (b 1943) has had - is having - an amazing multi-pronged career. One of the original members of the Monty Python team, he has subsequently reinvented himself as a prolific author, a film and television actor and, more recently, a hugely popular and successful travel show presenter and writer. Palin has a lot to celebrate these next few weeks with the publication of the second volume of his diaries, Halfway to Hollywood, and, next month, Python's 40th birthday (can it really be possible?) Tomorrow Palin is giving a public interview in Ely Cathedral for the Cambridge Film Festival; on 15 October he will be honoured, along with his four surviving fellow Pythons, at New York's Ziegfeld Theater. In the meantime, this tireless globetrotter discourses, over tea in Turin, on all of the above.