When Michael Palin met the Tailenders

Sir Michael Edward Palin - actor, comedian, writer, television presenter and... Tailender?

The all-round genius joined Greg James, Jimmy Anderson and Felix White for a very special episode of the Tailenders podcast.

Listen to the episode now on the free BBC Sounds app.

In a wide-ranging interview he discusses his career with Monty Python, his legendary travelogues, including his new series on Nigeria, his films and his love of cricket.

Here's what we found out when Michael Palin met the Tailenders.

A renowned travel writer and documentarian, Michael has seen all corners of the earth, with cricket never far from view, even in the midst of the Himalayan mountains.

"One amazing moment, when we were climbing up the Himalayas, and we were at about 16,000 feet and there was a cricket match going on there on this little plateau ledge, and beyond it, you could see mountains that went up to 23,000 feet, just extraordinary background. And that ended up in Wisden, actually, that photo of the highest cricket match ever photographed.

"Of course if you hit a six or a boundary or something like that takes three days to collect the ball. There's some lady down there planting seeds going 'ow!'"

Michael's hero was an Australian cricketer named Keith Miller, who is widely regarded as their greatest ever all-rounder. When he eventually got the chance to meet his icon, he was shocked to learn Keith was also a fan of his work, and they continued to keep in touch after meeting.

“And at that time, you know, Keith Miller not only looked absolutely fantastic with flowing locks, he he was an all rounder and hit sixes - I think he hit one of the longest sixes at Lord's, right out with the pavilion. He was my absolute hero before Elvis came along.

"One of the great things in my life was I met Keith Miller much later on at Lord's as a guest of Paul Getty. In comes this guy on two sticks, he wasn't very well at all, but he came in and he just had the glamour about him when he came into this room.

"He saw me and I was just about to grovel and fall to the ground and worship him. He said: 'Michael Palin, we love your work!' Then he went through the whole litany of things I'd done. I had to say: 'Stop, stop, I want to say how brilliant you are'.

"We kept a bit of a correspondence up. He'd write in Sydney and I'd write him."

When on the subject of Jimmy Anderson's recent trip to Dharamshala with the England cricket team, Michael asked the nation's greatest ever Test bowler if he got the chance to meet the Dalai Lama who resides near there. It turned out Jimmy did have the chance, but missed out due to a comical reason.

Michael: "That's where the Dalai Lama is. Did you meet him?"

Jimmy: "I didn’t. A few of the guys went to meet him. My kids are fuming with me that I didn't go. I'm not particularly spiritual or anything like that. It was in the morning and we had afternoon practice and I fancied a lie-in."

Michael: "Were you just worried, Jimmy, that he might not know who you were?"

Jimmy: "It felt like a photo opportunity rather than, you know, meeting him."

Michael: "You'd have taken a bit of the glamour away from him. I would think he'd have known that too, because he can't play cricket!"

Michael and Jimmy have both become the absolute greats in their respective fields, but how much do they reflect on previous works to achieve perfection?

Michael: "I do a bit. I need that boost of confidence. Every new thing I do, I have doubts and think, can you still do it? Are we doing the right programme? Are we doing the right place? So, you know, I look back and and I do occasionally just get the general buzz of why a show might work.

Michael: "But everything I've ever done, I'm always critical at the end. You know, if you get 90% right, that's fine. But generally, certainly 10% I always think ‘Oh, that was [bad]’.”

Jimmy: "I don’t know whether it’s the perfectionist in you, but I generally do focus on the 10% that's not as good as it could have been, and then try and improve that for next time."

In the early 1980s, Michael was on set of a film called 'The Missionary', a project that The Beatles' George Harrison had helped to finance.

There was a great buzz about the set when rumours swirled of a visit from Harrison, but when he did arrive on set, he didn't particularly want to be spotted.

"George came along with Denis O'Brien, his manager, and we were doing a scene and suddenly I noticed between the bushes, two faces peer out.

"It's George and Denis. And we’re about to say something, and then the trees sort of closed again. He didn't want to be seen, he just wanted to watch it but everybody knew he was there.

"Phoebe Nicholls was doing a scene and George was very close in the cupboard. I said: 'George, you're going to have to just shut the cupboard for the scene.' He said:' That's great, that's fine.' And she couldn't do the scene because there was a Beatle so close to her."

Having met people from all countries, cultures, and different ways of life through his storied career, Michael has come to find that one thing unites everyone around the planet - humour.

"If you can make people laugh, then then that's 75% of the way to getting them to talk to you and share a drink with you and all that.

"Even in North Korea, they don't give vent to their feelings that often, but we were stuck at an airport and the director brought a bit of [Monty] Python on his laptop and said to my guide, lovely lady, but she was quite serious, 'do you want to have a look at this? I'll show you something'. And it was the fish-slapping dance from Python. Just to see somebody who couldn't comprehend what she was about to see, and she burst into laughter.

I mean, it was really wonderful because all the control and all the polished performance she'd been told to do just collapsed straight away and she just roared with laughter."

Hear more stories from Sir Michael Palin, including his days starting out at the BBC to the perils of eating rotten camel meat, on the 90-minute special episode of the Tailenders podcast available now on BBC Sounds.

Listen in full here.

Also, watch his latest series, Michael Palin in Nigeria, on Channel 5 and My5.