Around the World in 80 Days

Documentary

Michael Palin	Himself
Don Bannerman	Himself
Chris Collins	Himself
Terry Gilliam	Himself
Terry Jones	Himself
Basil Pao	Himself
David Powers	Himself
Alan Whicker	Himself
Chris Collins (XI)

Director	Roger Mills; Clem Vallance
Producer	Clem Vallance
Writer	Michael Palin; Jules Verne

In 1989 Michael Palin recreated the famous voyage made in 1873 by Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's epic Around the World in 80 Days. This 10-part (eight-hour) BBC documentary featured Palin and his passepartout using only the modes of transport available to the novelist's intrepid traveller. Hiring Palin was the masterstroke that ensured the series became a television milestone; despite being one of the comedy-surrealists of Monty Python's Flying Circus and the perpetrator of Ripping Yarns, he proved to be the most amiable travelling companion imaginable. His charm and ingenuity, coupled with the race-against-time format and the opportunity to visit at second-hand places most of us will never see, made Around the World in 80 Days an unmissable television event. So much so that Palin soon returned to the travel format in Pole to Pole (1992), Full Circle (1997) and Sahara (2002). --Gary S Dalkin