There is a delightful moment, which Michael Palin recounts in his journal of his travels last year in North Korea, when he celebrated his 75th birthday.
A cheering moment, then, and also a significant anniversary, marking 30 years since Palin set off on his very first travel odyssey for the BBC, Around the World in 80 Days. Since then, he has visited 98 countries. But North Korea, he says, was the most extraordinary of all. “Which sounds a bit hyperbolic, but is true.
Palin’s crew were given hitherto unparalleled access to film, albeit with strict conditions. “Part of the deal was they could, at any point, look through the camera and see what we were shooting, and view the material at the end of the day. What was surprising is that they rarely asked to cut anything.”
“At one point, she said in North Korea we are like a family, and the great leaders are our fathers. I said, in any family there are little disagreements and does this ever happen within the great family of North Korea? She looked very awkward and embarrassed. At that moment, she realised there was nothing she could say. She was being watched. And the people who were watching her were being watched, and the people behind them were also being watched.
North Korea, Palin concludes, “is like a very bright child that’s being kept in and not being allowed to go out and play”. And reading his account, and watching the documentary on which it is based, one is reminded afresh of Palin’s great qualities as a traveller — his curiosity, good humour and willingness to see the best in everyone he encounters.
One of the great things about the Monty Python team, he says, was that they shared a very low opinion of the idea of stardom. “We never thought of ourselves as part of showbiz hierarchy; and most of us were able to go on to work on things that we enjoyed and entailed a certain amount of risk.”
North Korean life expectancy is less than 75