Sir Michael Palin on new Venezuela travel documentary: 'Along came men with rifles, bulletproof vests and helmets - and they ended up watching Monty Python'

After he comes back from his travel adventures – most recently Venezuela for his new 5 documentary, Michael Palin in Venezuela – the British actor and comedian first goes on a family holiday where he can relax and spend time with his grandchildren.

But then it’s back to work. Palin, who shot to fame in the comedy troupe Monty Python in 1969, still wants to continue seeing the world through the travel documentaries he makes – provided his new series goes well.

Palin’s interactions with local people and different cultures have been captured over the past 36 years in his other travel series, including Around the World in 80 Days, Full Circle with Michael Palin, Pole to Pole with Michael Palin, Sahara with Michael Palin, and Michael Palin: Travels of a Lifetime.

And since the loss of his wife, Helen Gibbins, in May 2023, and a few of his close male friends, Sheffield-born Palin has welcomed the distraction his work brings and enjoys being challenged. In Michael Palin in Venezuela, viewers will follow the author of the upcoming book of the same name as he explores what life is like in one of South America’s most culturally rich, vibrant, but also troubled nations.

From flying to a beautiful cluster of coral islands in the Caribbean Sea called Los Roques to meeting locals, Palin will see firsthand how Venezuela’s unstable political situation has impacted its tourism industry. "We’re always looking for amazing countries that have lots going for them, and yet nothing seems to be working there – places with potential but also problems,” he says.

“So we’ve filmed in North Korea, Iraq and Nigeria, the kinds of places where other people tend to say, “Why are you going there?”, which really spurs me on. It’s all about exploring, which isn’t easy to do these days because most places in the world have been visited already.”

“We have a wonderful team, who I also visited North Korea with,” he continues. “Once we decide we want to go somewhere, they do all the work to find out whether it’s possible, how to get there, and what the security situation is. It’s a jammy job for me, because I just turn up at Heathrow and off we go.

“Our director, Neil Ferguson, would tell me if he felt it was too dangerous to go somewhere. Indeed, 5 wouldn’t send me either if it were really dangerous. Obviously, there are places in the world that you just wouldn’t go to, like war zones, but many countries get a bad press in the West, even though the people are very welcoming when you actually get there. In fact, they’re almost more welcoming than usual because they don’t get many visitors. So that takes the edge off the danger, and then you just hope everything will be alright.”

The Bafta winner – for his performance in A Fish Called Wanda – will also embark on a 1,000-mile road trip into the heart of Venezuela, where he first stops at a huge rum distillery in Aragua state. But things take a bad turn when Palin and his crew are detained for seven hours – without their passports – by armed officers from SEBIN, the country’s feared intelligence service.

Talking about one point in the trip when the team are stopped by police, Palin says: “Things got quite heavy. It wasn’t just the fact that they stopped us from filming; it was the force with which we were stopped. It started with a couple of policemen, then a couple of the National Guard, and then along came men with rifles, bulletproof vests and helmets.

“They ordered us to open all our bags, and they took photos of everything. I understood why they were taking pictures of the equipment, but who wants a photo of my old underpants? In the end, the outcome was rather bizarre, because while we were waiting to hear our fate from the headquarters in Caracas, the guards had found my name on Google. First, they found an interview with me and John Cleese defending The Life of Brian to the Bishop of Southwark and Malcolm Muggeridge.

"They watched it and decided I wasn’t very funny. But eventually they got onto Monty Python clips, and they watched the fish slapping dance, which is always a good thing to show people. Nearly everyone in the world, from North Korea to Venezuela, cracks up when they see that.”

It wasn’t the only precarious moment, with Palin also holding an anaconda – which a man pulled out of his bag. “This guy had a 14-foot anaconda in his backpack… I couldn’t believe that. So I thought the snake would be fairly angry by the time we extracted it,” Palin says. “Fortunately, there were rangers with me, so I just held part of it, but I could feel how incredibly strong its muscles were; they were rippling under the surface.”

It’s fair to say there’s been some memorable moments but what is the lasting impression that Venezuela has had on him? “My overriding feeling is the size and scale of the place – enormous stretches of forest, towering huge mountains and then the Andes as well, with steep, wonderful views, everything is immense. There aren’t that many people there, only about 28 million and yet the country is enormous, so just the sheer space and grandeur of the landscape stays with you.

"It’s very sad because visitors would have a great time there, but tourism is difficult. Saying that, things are getting slightly better there now. The Caribbean coast is absolutely magnificent; you feel that you can’t deprive people of a place like that.”

Michael Palin in Venezuela comes to 5 today.