Michael Palin hints next show could be his last amid uncomfortable Channel 5 move

This Morning: Michael Palin on slowing down

Michael Palin has shared that he could be departing Channel 5 as the broadcaster is set to move it's operations to somewhere that would not be convenient for the Monty Python star.

He told Radio Times: “Channel 5 are currently working out somewhere really uncomfortable for me to go to next, in a location I can’t disclose. That could be the last journey, but who knows? Everything has been ‘the last journey.’” 

“For me, informing is a matter of working hard with a good team to make something that people want to watch. If you educate people and they say, ‘You’ve changed my mind about this country,’ that’s enormously important.

"And to entertain, without trying to sell anyone anything, is a generous impulse. It’s about connecting with people," he added.

The comedy icon and travel presenter says he has come to terms with his own mortality following the passing of his wife of 57 years Helen in 2023, and the death of his dear friend and fellow Python Terry Jones, who passed in 2020 from dementia at the age of 77.

Michael Palin has revealed he could be stepping down from TV screens. (Image: Getty)

Speaking on The Third Act podcast, he said: “I'm aware that I haven't got that long to live. I could fall down the stairs anytime really, or go under a bus.

"I feel physically fine and quite able to deal with it, but that is just a fact of life. So, although you look back in the past, you also look forward and think, ‘What will I do to keep going?’ Touch wood, I will be physically okay with doing another journey, but I might not be.

"And then if I can't do any more travelling, I mean, things happen. With your body, things begin to wear out, and I have to be prepared for that.”

Michael - who has two sons, Thomas and William, and daughter Rachel as well as four grandchildren - says watching his beloved Helen deteriorate with kidney failure made him “comfortable” with death, as ultimately it released her from great pain.

Michael is best known for being part of Monty Python's comedy troupe. (Image: Getty)

Although Palin isn’t a Christian, he does pray to a higher power for comfort and respects those who do believe in an afterlife.

The star - who mocked Christianity in the Monty Python films The Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life - said: “I've become quite comfortable with it [death] now, really.

“Helen was quite ill for about two years, and gradually wound down, couldn't leave the house, lost her mobility and lots of things, she was always very active. And I saw that, and we talked a lot about decay and approaching death.

"We didn't sort of shy away from that, but I always said, ‘You’re not, Kate, you'll be all right, you'll get better.’ And she didn't actually get better. So in the end when she died, it seemed the best thing.

Radio Times on sale now. (Image: RADIO TIMES)

“So I don't have a horror of death, and I don't feel death has to be a malignant thing. “It was awful that she got ill. I wish all these things hadn't happened to her, but they did, and it delivered her from a lot of pain.

“I think about God. I have sort of a somewhat ambivalent attitude to God. I have no faith in the sense that, you know, the sort of belief in Christ saving the world and all that. But I do believe in people's beliefs, and I'm rather reassured that some people do have beliefs. 

"I say my prayers, and I think that's a good thing. Just to sort of remember there's something else there. I mean, it probably isn't, It’s a construct to make us deal with the feeling that we're just not going drop off the end of the earth."