The Python Years cover art

The Python Years

Diaries 1969-1979 (Volume One)

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Python Years

By: Michael Palin
Narrated by: Michael Palin
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $43.99

Buy Now for $43.99

About this listen

 Michael Palin's bestselling diaries before, during and after Monty Python.

Michael Palin's diaries begin when he was newly married and struggling to make a name for himself in the world of television comedy. But Monty Python was just around the corner . . .

Enjoying an unlikely cult status early on, the Pythons then proceeded to tour the USA and Canada. As their popularity grew, so Palin relates how the group went their separate ways, later to re-form for stage shows and the celebrated films THE HOLY GRAIL and LIFE OF BRIAN. Living through the three-day week and the miners strike, and all the trials of a peripatetic life are also essential ingredients of these perceptive and funny diaries.©2006 Michael Palin Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Performing Arts Celebrity Comedy Entertainment Funny

Critic Reviews

His showbiz observations are so absorbing . . . Palin is an elegant and engaging writer
Accomplished . . . If Palin's comic genius is a given, this is a more rounded portrait of the decade which saw the Pythons become icons. Our favourite TV explorer shows us the workings of an unstoppable machine
Palin's style is so fluid, and his sincerity so palpable, that it is often easy to underestimate just how talented he is as a comedian, broadcaster and a writer . . . [the diaries] are just too good and he is too modest
Delightful and often extraordinarily funny . . . An entertaining and at times deeply moving read
If anyone writes a diary purely for the joy of it, it is Michael Palin . . . This combination of niceness, with his natural volubility, creates Palin's expansiveness
Palin's steady eye, contemplative bent and instinct for honest appraisal make him the perfect chronicler of a frequently insane period which saw the Monty Python team become the most celebrated comedians in the world
A real delight to read
A slow burn, revealing its pleasures only gradually, and allowing readers the warm glow of hindsight denied its writer . . . This book will make the perfect present for those comedy obsessives of a certain age, who will know exactly what it is long before they have unwrapped it
All stars
Most relevant
Amazing stories and insights into the minds and actions of possibly the greatest comedy troupe ever.

Simply wonderful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Absolutely superb - the whole series is a fascinating insight into MP and the industry.
I feel as if I know him intimately now.

Brilliant and addictive!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is essentially a padded day to day read of the diary kept by Michael Palin from the early Python days to the release of The Life of Brian. Parts regarding the making of Grail and Brian are very good and should be found interesting by most listeners. Other daily extracts are not as enthralling but should be found appealing by true Python fans. Having Michael narrate the book himself is brilliant and he does a great job.

Very Detailed, Candid and Long

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The diaries are very easy to listen to. Nicely narrated by Michael himself. Full of funny observations and the experiences of himself and the other members of Monty Python.
Warm and witty.

Funny account of the life and times of Michael Palin

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
if you want to spend 29hours listening to Michael tell you what he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner, this is for you.
endured 7.5 hours and gave up !
love Monty python by this is not a good behind the scenes insight.

No

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.