In the autumn of 1988 Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Phileas Fogg in the epic novel of 1873. His journey became a great 20th Century adventure and soon took its place as a classic TV series. Using only the modes of transport available to Jules Verne's hero, Michael Palin travels in a Venetian refuse barge, a battered taxi in Egypt, a primitive boat across the Persian Gulf, a Chinese steam engine and a container ship across the Date Line as his attempt to circumnavigate the world heralds a phenomenal journey of dhows, diarrhea, hungry parrots and a world full of surprises.

Twenty years later Michael Palin returned to the scene of one of the series most memorable sequences - when he sailed across the Persian Gulf from Dubai to Mumbai in a traditional dhow. Can he trace the men with whom he forged a special bond, and on whom his life depended twenty years ago?

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So this is where it all began. The Michael Palin career in travel. Numerous travel documentaries have followed and all have been entertaining in their own way but, I would venture, none have been as entertainng as this. There is a naivite here, a kind of amateur enthusiasm as to whether Palin and his crew can actaully pull it off. Not the getting around the world in 80 days business but whether they could fashion compulsive viewing from it. They needn't have worried: they pull it off precisely because they are innocents at the game.

From this has come what must be a multi-million revenue for the BBC and made Palin a wealthy man. First the TV series then the book, video, dvd, new series etc. etc. But there would be no commercial success if there wasn't Palin. His geniality is unsurpassed. I wonder who was the genius who first thought up the concept of Palin and travel? In hindsight it seems the easiest of concepts but it must have been risy in the late 1980s. I mean, Palin wasn't known for this sort of thing and there were other presenters on their roster with the experience. But it turn out an inspired choice.

For a generaton of us this gave colour to our black and white dreams of travel. From the comfort of an armchair you were taken all over the world and you didn't have to break sweat. I remember when it first came out there was a tension there as to whether he could actually do it in 80 days. Was it ever sensible for him to get off the train in the US for a balloon ride when the schedule was so tight?, I remember thinking. And was he still friends with the guy in Chicago who so very nearly derailed the adventure? I won't ruin it for anyone living on Mars who hasn't seen it by giving away the ending.

I remember thinking how grey Britain looked after all the technicolour from around the world. So many sights and sounds to take in you need the Dvd set to watch it again and take everything in.

For me, head and shoulders above everything are the friendships he forged on the dhow to Bombay (now Mumbai). They had so very little but gave so much. Truly epic, truly tender and the parting is wistful, full of sad realisation that their paths would probaly never meet again. In fact they did when he went back 20 years later to find them. I did find the reunion quite sad. Not at the outcome but at the realisation of all that time passing, time spent.

The documentary also reveals that the Pacific and Atlantic don't make great television as the last half of the journey takes up only about an hour and a bit of the series.

You also get the rarity of rarities of Michael Palin losing it towards the end! It's fleeting, hardly worth mentioning if it was anyone else, but he does have a sharp word or two for a newspaper vendor in London who doesn't want to be on film. It does confirm that Palin is human like the rest of us after all.

One useless piece of trivia I learnt from the programme was that the balloon didn't actually appear in the book but was created for the 1950s Hollywood blockbuster.

Sit back and let the nostalgia sweep all over you. It bears multiple viewing.

And I bet that Michael Palin has one of those smart-but-casual jumpers for whatever the occasion!

© Paul Page, 2011

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Around The World in 20 Years & exclusive interview with Michael Palin

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Official UK release. BBCDVD3028.

Condition: New. Only 1 left in stock.

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