[4][5] Palin started in television working on programmes including the Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report, and Do Not Adjust Your Set.

[7][8] Other notable films include Jabberwocky (1977), Time Bandits (1981), The Missionary (1982), A Private Function (1984), Brazil (1985), Fierce Creatures (1997), and The Death of Stalin (2017).

[19] When he was five years old, Palin had his first acting experience at Birkdale playing Martha Cratchit in a school performance of A Christmas Carol.

[1] With fellow student Robert Hewison he performed and wrote, for the first time, comedy material at a university Christmas party.

[24] At the same time, Palin was contacted by Jones, who had left university a year earlier, to help with writing a theatrical documentary about sex through the ages.

Eager to work with Palin[31] sans Jones, Cleese later asked him to perform in How to Irritate People together with Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor.

Thus the formation of the Monty Python troupe has been referred to as a result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold.

He also played timid, socially inept characters such as Arthur Putey, the man who sits quietly as a marriage counsellor (Eric Idle) makes love to his wife (Carol Cleveland), and Mr Anchovy, a chartered accountant who wants to become a lion tamer.

(He had earlier played the cameo role of "Dennis the Peasant" in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, also directed by Gilliam.)

He appeared in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, which co-starred and was co-written by John Cleese, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

In 1991 he appeared in the film American Friends, which he wrote based upon a real event in the life of his great-grandfather, a fellow at St John's College, Oxford.

In 1994, Palin narrated the English language audiobook version of Esio Trot by children's author Roald Dahl.

[42] In 2013, Palin appeared in a First World War drama titled The Wipers Times written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman.

[43] At the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, it was announced that Palin was set to star alongside Adam Driver in Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

[46] The documentary was broadcast in September 2018, in two one-hour segments on Channel 5 in the UK and in a single two-hour programme on National Geographic in the United States.

[51] Palin's first travel documentary was episode 4 of the 1980 BBC Television series Great Railway Journeys of the World, entitled "Confessions of a Trainspotter".

At the Kyle of Lochalsh, Palin bought the station's long metal platform sign and is seen lugging it back to London with him.

In a quest for family roots, he attempted to trace his great-grandmother – Brita Gallagher – who had set sail from Ireland 150 years earlier during the Great Famine (1845–1849), bound for a new life in Burlington, New Jersey.

[52] In 2018, he was hired by ITN Productions to present travel documentaries commissioned by Channel 5, with journeys to North Korea and Iraq completed by 2022.

Palin filmed on the battlefields of Northern France and Belgium for the programme, called the Last Day of World War One, produced for the BBC's Timewatch series.

[65][66] William is Director of Conservation at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London,[67] and oversaw the 2018–19 restoration of the Painted Hall.

[72][73] Palin is most notably a supporter of Sheffield Wednesday, famously holding aloft a trophy and shouting the club's name while in Venice shooting Around the World in 80 Days.

In July 2015, he signed an open letter and gave an interview to support "a strong BBC at the centre of British life" at a time when the government was reviewing the corporation's size and activities.

[78] In July 2010, Palin sent a message of support for the Dongria Kondh tribe of India, who were resisting mining on their land by the company Vedanta Resources.

Palin said, "I've been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government.

[95] In June 2013, he was similarly honoured in Canada with a gold medal for achievements in geography by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

[102] He joins his fellow Pythons John Cleese and Terry Jones in receiving an honorary degree from the Fife institution.

[103] In October 2018, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society awarded Palin the first Louie Kamookak Medal for advances in geography, for his book on the history of the polar exploration vessel HMS Erebus.

[104] Palin was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours for "services to television drama and travel documentaries".

[106] In 2017, the British Library acquired Palin's archive consisting of project files relating to his work, notebooks, and personal diaries.