Michael Palin Manchester Opera House

SPENDING almost three hours on a Monday listening to Michael Palin is a hugely comforting way to start your week.

So there was a real treat in store for those lucky enough to have a ticket to see the globe-trotting Python star at the Manchester Opera House this week.

He may now be in his 70s, but there was no sign of slowing down as he took the audience through two parts of his life in the tour which is being run alongside the publication of his latest book, Travelling to Work: Diaries 1988 -98.

Self-depricating, his first half of 'holiday snaps' as he described it, saw the audience transported to some of the most remarkable place on earth from Mali to Mauritania and Bhutan to Pakistan.

This was no beach shots from Benidorm.

Complete with remarkable anecdotes, it gave us a real insight into what it took to produce the travel documentaries which have shape his life in the past 25 years.

The second half took us through his comedy life.

From how he met wife Helen on a family holiday in Norfolk to some unseen footage with John Cleese at Blenheim Palace in the 1970s.

And his finale, a reading from his 1974 book Dr Fegg's Encyclopaedia of All World Knowledge, a story in Enid Blyton-style, sent this crowd home very happy.