Monty Python comedian/writer Michael Palin takes up the famous challenge: to travel around the world in only 80 days. Air travel is forbidden?? and wherever possible he uses the same routes and transport as Jules Verne's fictional hero?? Phileas Fogg?? meeting many interesting characters en route. As he races across continents and against the clock?? Michael's charm and ingenuity delights the armchair traveler.
]"r>Amazon.comMichael Palin started another career in the late 1980s: explorer. The former Python brings humor?? humanity?? and class to the genre of filmed travelogues with Around the World in 80 Days?? his first and best journey. The genesis of this BBC series is a sly side-bet: can someone travel via 19th-century means around the world in 80 days like Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg did in 1872? As Palin travels around London asking experts about world travel?? it seems to be a 50/50 chance at best. The reliance on air travel makes shipping schedules very tentative?? and in some ways just slowing down may be a hardship for a 20th-century traveler. As Palin notes?? air travel is about viewing airports; no one really "s" anymore.Armed with his inflatable globe?? Palin starts off by train across Europe before problems arise: missed connections?? labor strikes?? language difficulties?? and the like. But Palin is adorable company to have for the seven-part?? six-hour series. He manages the impossible?? always making us believe we are in the moment?? even though some scenes had to be shot to accommodate the camera (he enters a taxi alone?? the next scene we are with him in the cab). Palin is light on his feet?? with quick humorous jabs?? which comes in handy as his schedule is always on the brink of disaster. He offers round remarks on the countries he visits and often has amusing side trips: garbage man in Venice?? bit actor in India?? and cook aboard a freighter.
The highlight is the third episode?? set almost entirely on a dhow slowly moving from Arabia to India. Here Palin is introduced to a life slowed down to its basics with a crew of mostly non-Engl