MICHAEL PALIN: INTO IRAQ
Channel 5, 9pm
Perhaps the biggest revelation in the latest of Michael Palin’s new travelogues is that he recently underwent heart surgery. Charging up hills and enduring bumpy rides in 4x4s, the 79-year-old former Python has the air of a man 20 years younger. And, of course, his curiosity, empathy and sense of daring remain absolutely intact, even if his innate optimism takes a beating in the first of this threeparter
following the Tigris from source to sea. Walking through the rubble in Mosul old town, he meets children clearly still psychologically scarred by Isil occupation and is affected so badly that he swears (and then apologises, of course). There are also disheartening encounters with Kurds in Turkey, still ostracised, near the “barbed wire and lorries” of the Turkishiraqi border crossing. But being Palin, he is
equally keen to look for positive angles and to the future of Iraq: a hipster tailor and a female entrepreneur in the wealthy, Americaninfluenced city of Erbil offer two different perspectives on leaving the past behind, while the celebrations for Nowruz, delayed for three years, ensure the visual impact is as memorable as Palin’s quietly insightful one-to-ones with locals. Gabriel Tate