Join Monty Python's Michael Palin on his second globetrotting adventure from Pole to Pole. Travelling from the North to the South Poles using only land and sea transport, he dodges... more
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World in 80 Days, with a race against time to get from the North Pole to the South Pole. Palin balks at nothing, tries just about anything and always finds time ...
World in 80 Days, with a race against time to get from the North Pole to the South Pole. Palin balks at nothing, tries just about anything and always finds time ...
World in 80 Days, with a race against time to get from the North Pole to the South Pole. Palin balks at nothing, tries just about anything and always finds time for a spot of tea. En route Palin stars in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attends a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, gets stuck in a Nile traffic jam, buys chicken in Wadi Halfa, goes camel shopping in Khartoum and is prescribed tree bark by a Mpulugu witch doctor to get rid of his evil shadow. Even when things go according to plan, Palin travels in unusual ways--by dogsled on Spitsbergen, barge down the Dnieper, train roof across the Nubian Desert, van through the Sudan, hot-air balloon over Kenya and down Lake Tanganyika on the "African Queen". With curiosity, courage and his standard aplomb, Palin plunges himself into the local cultures, beating himself with birch branches in a Finnish sauna and wallowing in mud in an Odessa sanatorium. It all makes for an armchair traveller's delight. --Tara Chace
Michael Palin proceeded to stretch even his endurance with his next journey, travelling due south from the North Pole, arriving five months later at the southernmost point of the globe, the South Pole. The result is Pole to Pole, Palin's account of his extraordinary journey between July and December 1991, passing through 17 countries from Greenland and the former Soviet Union in the north to Kenya, South Africa and Chile in the south. From the frozen wastes of both poles, to the scorching heat of Africa, Pole to Pole is a travelogue of bizarre extremes. Palin revels in the surrealism of it all as he travels through a range of vastly different European and African communities undergoing massive social and political upheavals in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Palin's shrewd observations are as ever interspersed with his eye for the weird and the comical, as he meets Santa Claus and Lenin, goes shopping for camels in Omdurman, and makes a final hectic dash to the South Pole via Chile. It's all quite exhausting! --Jerry Brotton
World in 80 Days, with a race against time to get from the North Pole to the South Pole. Palin balks at nothing, tries just about anything and always finds time for a spot of tea. En route Palin stars in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attends a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, gets stuck in a Nile traffic jam, buys chicken in Wadi Halfa, goes camel shopping in Khartoum and is prescribed tree bark by a Mpulugu witch doctor to get rid of his evil shadow. Even when things go according to plan, Palin travels in unusual ways--by dogsled on Spitsbergen, barge down the Dnieper, train roof across the Nubian Desert, van through the Sudan, hot-air balloon over Kenya and down Lake Tanganyika on the "African Queen". With curiosity, courage and his standard aplomb, Palin plunges himself into the local cultures, beating himself with birch branches in a Finnish sauna and wallowing in mud in an Odessa sanatorium. It all makes for an armchair traveller's delight. --Tara Chace
Plot: A mammoth trek from the North to the South Pole. An incredible journey and a brand-new challenge for Michael Palin, the man who travelled 'around the world in eighty days'.
Release details
DVD Region: Region 2 (Europe)
Studio(s): 2 ENTERTAIN VIDEO; SONY DADC
Release date: 01/03/2004
No of Discs: 3
Catalogue No: BBCDVD 1220
Barcode: 5014503122027
Languages
Main Language: English
DVD Description
Join Monty Python's Michael Palin on his second globetrotting adventure from Pole to Pole. Travelling from the North to the South Poles using only land and sea transport, he dodges polar bears, consults with doctors, and watches his luggage melt in the African sun.
Technical information
Special Features: Exclusive Interview With Michael Palin
Professional reviews
Review: "...Other travel shows Palin to insignificance compared to this one--never before has globetrotting been so amusing..." (The Sun, )
Advantages: The best travel documentaries ever. Disadvantages: Finding enough time to watch it all.
...There are travel documentaries and there are those featuring MichaelPalin. This superb box set is not so much a who's who of travel, but more a where's where.
Palin's gentle manner and off-beat humor if as much part of the entertainment as the destinations he visits. Even if you don't like geography, you'll be hard pressed to find exploration of our planet from the comfort of your own sofa any better than this.
Tech Spec:
16 discs covering seven MichaelPalin television series filmed for the BBC.
A total running time that runs into days not just hours.
Box set contents:
Hemingway Adventure - retracing the footsteps of writer Ernest Hemingway
Around The World In 80 Days - Jules Verne fiction put to the test
Pole To Pole - from North to South across Northern Europe, Russia & Africa
Full Circle - a 50,000 mile trip around...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Palin, interesting interviewees, more insight than 'Around the World' Disadvantages: None if you yearn to travel and like Palin.
...the presentation and the programme. Palin knows when to act the fool (which he wisely rations), when to be serious and he has a refreshing sense of the understatement normally accompanied by wittily ironic throw aways. 'Full Circle' would not have quite the same charm without his presence.
SUMMARY AND COMPARISONS
There are three main reasons why this is the best in the MichaelPalin series of travelogues, the first of which has been discussed at the top of this review; namely that Palin was able to forget the pressures of a restrictive schedule and explore the places he visited with greater depth. The second reason is Palin himself. The idea of globe trotting is once more embraced with enthusiasm here, a feeling that is not conveyed with conviction in the earlier series 'Pole To Pole' (1992) for example, where a weariness appears to set in quite...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: travel the world from the comfort of your sofa Disadvantages: none
...The words of Buddha that I have used as a title here really sum up MichaelPalin's current career path. I guess you could call him a professional traveller, an Alan Wicker for the modern age. Except for the initial series where he set him self the task of following the mythical Phileas Fogg around the world in eighty days, Palin is a traveller with out purpose other than to enjoy the journey. What better job can there be? Shows such as these rely immensely on the presenter and many stand or fall on that factor alone. Mark Williams show "On The Rails" opened up the world of steam to many, solely through his enthusiasm and nature. Palin shines through in a similar way. He is the perfect host and travelling companion, a mix of old school English charm and off beat humour with an intelligent mind and a sharp view of the world around him. His...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
very helpful 03.12.2005
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