Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin
television series
Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin is a 7-part BBC television travel series first broadcast on BBC1 from 11 October to 22 November 1989, and presented by comedian and actor Michael Palin. Inspired by Jules Verne's 1872 novel Around the World in Eighty Days, in which Phileas Fogg accepts a wager to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days or less, Palin takes on the same task, prohibited from using aircraft in order to use a combination of trains, boats and other forms of transport, to take him across several countries around his circumnavigation of the world, including Italy, India, Egypt, China, Japan, and the United States.
The programme was a critical and commercial success, gaining strong ratings in the UK and selling well abroad. It was also released on video tape and later on DVD. Following the trip Michael Palin wrote a book about the experience. The book contains much more detail, along with photographs, than could be presented in the TV programme, and Palin's personal views are also more evident.
The series later spawned two further globe-crossing series featuring Palin – Pole to Pole with Michael Palin (travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole), an 8-part series first broadcast on BBC One in 1992; and Full Circle with Michael Palin (the circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim), a 10-part series first broadcast on BBC One in 1997 – as well as addition travel series in later years – Hemingway Adventure (following in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway) first broadcast in 1999, Sahara (travelling around and through the Sahara Desert) first broadcast in 2002, Himalaya (travelling around the Himalayas) first broadcast in 2004, New Europe (travelling around Eastern Europe) first broadcast in 2007, Brazil first broadcast in 2012, Michael Palin in North Korea broadcast in 2018, and Michael Palin: Into Iraq aired in 2022.
Synopsis
In 1988, the BBC offers Michael Palin a challenge to undertake for them – to circumnavigate the world in 80 days, much like Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg undertook in Verne's 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days. With the start and finish line being the Reform Club in London, Palin would be required to not use aircraft, which would not have been around in the late 19th century, instead relying on various modes of transportation, mostly consisting of passenger trains and commercial ships. In agreement to this, Palin was also given the task of acquiring a series of souvenirs along the journey for three 'referees' - Robert Hewison, and fellow Pythons Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. Accompanying Palin would be a small five-man film crew, who the comedian collectively names after Passepartout, Phileas Fogg's manservant.
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