Sir Michael Palin in The Philippines: 'There’s nothing more boring than when people say they can’t do things, I’m approaching my mid-80s, but I can still enjoy travel'

His latest travel show Michael Palin in the Philippines is the fifth documentary of its style he’s done for Channel 5 - and there were moments he had to explain that some things are getting more difficult.

“But then you have the surprise that often things work out, and you have the joy of saying, ‘Look I can do this. I’m approaching my mid-80s, but I can still enjoy this!’ And that’s so much better than sitting at home thinking about what you can’t do.”

Swimming with sardines was one such memorable moment.

“It seemed totally bizarre to think of a huge shoal of sardines, into which I would place myself in my clumsy 83-year-old manner. I thought, ‘If this is to be the last thing I do in my career then what a way to go!’

“I had a glamorous instructor called Gladys, who was very good at calming me down, and the underwater camera woman was called Beyonce. I’m so sad it wasn’t the real Beyonce, but I suppose she was busy.

“They shot it very skillfully, but getting in and out of the water was the most difficult thing. It was quite a rocky beach, and I began to think, ‘Why am I doing this?’ The director was shouting, ‘Michael, sit on your bottom and reverse’ so I was there with flippers on, half a snorkel in my mouth, trying to go backwards over some rocks into a receding sea.

“It was a great Mr Bean moment, but it did eventually prove exhilarating – once I got into the water I realised what all the fuss was about. There was an enormous number of sardines, and I’ve never seen quite so many small fish swimming together in such lyrical patterns. It was beautiful to watch.”

Palin’s latest adventure is a 2,500-mile journey across the islands of The Philippines, experiencing both the beauty and idyll of the travel hotspot, whilst delving deeper into a darker side of the country including poverty, political unrest, and anti-drug vigilantes.

“I’ve been there once before very briefly when we filmed Full Circle around the Pacific,” he recalls. “When we arrived in the Philippines during that shoot all those years ago it was just heaven after a very busy schedule, because the waters were so beautiful and clear, and it was a great place to rest up.

“But this time we deliberately wanted to look beneath the surface and to see beyond the sunny beaches to find out about the problems there. The more you look, the more you find out that the regime is pretty eccentric. We wanted to discover the two sides of the Philippines – it does have some big problems, but it also has lovely, warm, welcoming people, some very beautiful towns and lots of coastline.”

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Episode one, airing on September 28, sees Palin start his journey in Manila, the capital city of The Philippines, at a political protest march marking the 40th anniversary of the day that President Ferdinand Marcos was ousted out of power after years of dictatorial rule.

After negotiations, he is then suddenly invited to the Presidential Palace to meet the latest President Marcos, who it turns out is a lifelong Monty Python fan.

“We had been trying to get an interview with him from very early on in the process, because it was such an extraordinary thing that he was in power,” says Palin, who was knighted in 2019 for services to travel, culture and geography, marking his post-Python career in TV and writing.

“We arrived in the Philippines on the day when people were celebrating the departure of his disgraced mother and father, and yet he was President.

“We were told he would be too busy, but quite a way into the trip we got a message saying he would see us, but we would be restricted to only a few minutes, and would only be able to ask three fairly bland pre-approved questions. So we all had to buy special clothes – the film crew generally dresses in torn T-shirts, but that’s not what you wear to the Presidential palace!

“We waited for him in a very big room – the palace had been designed by his mother Imelda, and she doesn’t do things cheaply, so there were huge chandeliers. And then in walks a small man with a friendly face. Immediately I tried to remember the three questions I had to ask, but actually it turned out the President was a student in England during the 1970s and he would watch Monty Python in the college bar.

“So all he wanted to do was to ask me things about Python, like how John [Cleese] and I wrote the Fish Slapping Dance… It was a complete reversal from what I expected. I was standing there not allowed to talk about politics, and he just talked about Monty Python. So a three-minute interview turned into 45 minutes and we got a tour of the palace, it was quite disarming.”

The experience is one that octogenarian Palin will likely be discussing when he takes audiences beyond the television cameras in his touring live show next month. It will follow the release of his companion travel book Michael Palin in the Philippines on October 1 and will see Palin share stories from his travels across the country, reflecting on the people he met and the moments that have stayed with him long after the cameras stopped rolling.

Despite finding himself in some challenging situations, he says he felt “pretty safe”.

“I’m a great believer in not seeing doom ahead unless it hits you, but perhaps that’s not a particularly good philosophy – maybe you should be prepared. In almost all of our films there has been a moment where we’ve needed a police escort, so presumably they were worried about a threat to your life, but it has always worked out.

“There were places in the Philippines, particularly when we went to the island of Mindanao, where there was no chance of putting a smiley face on things – civilians had been killed in a war raged by terrorists and there was loss of life on a big scale on one of the most beautiful islands in the world. But I’ve always felt there’s something to learn, rather than something to be scared of.

“There is also tension about the shipping lanes on the South China Sea. We visited a small island, with only about 200 people living there, and you could see Chinese ships on the horizon, which was quite chilling. We went out on a boat and when we got close to the Chinese coastguard we received a loud message from them on the ship’s radio telling us to leave immediately, so we turned back.

“There were children playing in the harbour, diving in the water and jumping on boats. They were in this incredibly unsafe situation on the edge of a possible hostile attack, but they didn’t understand the threat, which was heartening.”

Palin, who starred as Brian Sleep in the BBC comedy series Small Prophets earlier this year, says he is always thinking about where to go next. “For me, travelling is an exercise in curiosity and it will always be there, but I realise I’m slowing down a bit at 83… but then you always think of David Attenborough who is 100 and has probably made 12 documentaries this year, so you just have to keep going.”

He admits he’s never quite sure “if I’m an actor who travels, or a traveller who acts” but claims they aren’t that different. Both are about observation, he says, and learning something you didn’t know before.

“I think people see more of a gap between acting and making documentaries than there really is – I’m always using my skills as an actor to communicate when I’m presenting. I’m basically a very shy show-off, which is a complicated mix, but I really am. I wouldn’t go round wanting to impress people, but if I’m given the chance to do something I can do well then I become an arch exhibitionist. I think most actors are.”

Michael Palin in the Philippines airs weekly on Channel 5, starting September 28 at 9pm. Palin will be at St George’s Hall, Bradford on October 30. For tickets visit bradford-theatres.co.uk/whats-on/michael-palin-in-the-philippines