'Laughs are on me' - Michael Palin using zimmer frame after suffering cracked pelvis in fall
Yorkshire comedy legend Michael Palin has said ‘the laughs are on me’ after he was left using a zimmer frame following a fal.
The former Monty Python star saids he and his co-stars always used zimmer frames to play slow-moving pensioners, and now he is living the role in real life after an early hours tumble at home left him with broken bones.
Posting on his website, the 83-year-old: “It’s now exactly a month since I thudded to my bathroom floor – returning from a pee at 3.30 in the morning. I still can’t walk without a zimmer.
“The laughs are all on me. Zimmers were used in Monty Python when we wanted to play slow-moving elderly people.
“Now I’m an elderly person for real, having to move very slowly as I have three broken ribs and a cracked pelvis. Bones take time to heal and I’m probably doomed to play this particular Python character for a few weeks more.
“I’m feeling sore, not just because I’ll never be able to achieve my dream of being the oldest Olympic hurdler but that I was never able to finish my Philippines tour and had to disappoint so many who’d bought tickets.
“I promise not to go to the bathroom ever again, and I shall try and find some other show dates next year.”
In the meantime, he says he is catching up with television shows and has a large pile of books to read.
Michael was brought up in Ranmoor, Sheffield, and was a pupil at Birkdale School, before he went to Oxford University and became a global star with Monty Python.
His success was marked with a star bearing his name outside Sheffield Town Hall in 2008.
Since making his name has a comedian, he has also gone on to make a series of travel shows.
However, he recently returned to comedy, acting in the sitcom Small Prophets, which was broadcast earlier this year.