Sir Michael Palin has hit out at the BBCs obsession with health and safety, claiming that the corporations infamous adherence to risk assessments risked turning his beloved travel programmes into a theme park.
The Monty Python legend, 81, began making travelogues with the Beeb in the 1980s - starting with the incredible Around the World in 80 Days, which saw him attempting to recreate the feat undertaken by Phileas Fogg in Jules Vernes classic novel.
For almost 25 years he hosted a series of travel programmes for the broadcaster - but he has now said the partnership ended after the BBC began to insist too heavily on taking every possible precaution before the cameras rolled.
But his unwillingness to kowtow to health and safety has not deterred him from filming shows for other broadcasters.
Sir Michael, who also wrote a series of books to accompany his BBC series, has since made a series of programmes with ITN Productions for Channel Five that have taken him to North Korea, Iraq and Nigeria.
Sir Michael Palin has blamed the BBCs adherence to health and safety for his split from the broadcaster - as he now makes travel programmes for Channel Five
He began making programmes with the landmark Around the World in 80 Days in 1989 - and began a partnership with the BBC lasting almost 25 years (pictured in 1992)
His last BBC travel programme took him to Brazil in 2012. He said programme bosses wanted him to wear a helmet just to cross the road
He has since made a number of programmes with ITN Productions that have taken him to countries including North Korea (pictured)
Sir Michael also hit out at the BBC for wanting to interfere a little more in how programmes were being made
Speaking at Cheltenham Literature Festival, the former Monty Python member said: They want you to wear a helmet just to cross the road, or while riding on an elephant.
Unfortunately if you do that it looks as if you are in a theme park.
The remarks, reported by the Telegraph, are not the first time the comedian has hit out at BBC executives for meddling in the production of his programmes in the modern era.
In an interview with the Radio Times last month, he said the BBC had wanted to interfere a little more in programmes and would have been desperately frustrated if he had stayed at the corporation.
He told the magazine: There was the feeling that the BBC wanted to interfere a little more, they wanted to control it a little more.
And they had this new way of presenting shows – which I would get absolutely, desperately frustrated with – where they would show, in the first five minutes, all the great moments of what was to come. Because this captured viewers.
Otherwise, as soon as they see Michael Palin, theyll switch off. The BBC were going in a different direction, and presentation was going in a different direction.
In 2016, he said the climate at the BBC had changed a bit in the latter days of his filmmaking, adding that programme commissioners were frightened of letting crews simply go away to film programmes and come back again.
He told the Hays Festival that year: Theyre a little bit wary of letting you do it, even though weve got a track record of bringing stuff back. They want to know what youre going to do, why youre going to do it, and how much it will cost, and all that.
That immediately constricts the whole thing. Theyre all a bit more managed now. The great joy of doing the shows was it was just a crew of six of us, we sold the idea to the BBC; they gave us the budget and trusted us to go and do it.
We didnt have to get on the phone and say how much wed shot that day or what we were filming, or could we afford to do this or that, we were just given time. That was a great privilege and it wouldnt happen now.
Sir Michael Palin and his wife Helen as seen in Around the World in 80 Days. She died aged 80 last year
Other programmes have seen Palin attempt to circumnavigate the globe and travel from one pole to the other (pictured in 1997)
Sir Michaels latest travelogue series in Nigeria (pictured) aired on Channel Five earlier this year
And in 2009, Sir Michael voiced his frustration at his 2007 documentary New Europe being censored by the BBC Trust, which claimed he had oversimplified issues relating to the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
However, the comedian did in fact return to the BBC to film Michael Palin: Travels of a Lifetime in 2020. The four-part series saw him recapping his biggest adventures - from the 80 Days challenge to circumnavigating the globe.
He has also appeared in other BBC productions since: he took the lead role in supernatural thriller series Remember Me in 2014, narrated the rebooted Clangers series for CBeebies and appeared in lockdown comedy Staged opposite Michael Sheen and David Tennant.
The former Monty Python member, who has just released a volume of diaries named There And Back, has recently confirmed he is planning a new travel series, and revealed he once turned down the opportunity to appear on Strictly Come Dancing.
Sir Michael told the Radio Times: In the diaries I talk a lot about being in my 60s. Well, Im now 81, and Im planning another series.
Im constantly banging on about the emails and number of people asking me to do things, I was asked to do Strictly Come Dancing but thought, that pathway is being a warm, joyful, much-loved celebrity, Im not that.
Im a bit of a loner, really. Just being a celebrity or a personality doesnt interest me that much.
He was also asked whether he regretted the amount of time he had spent away from his wife Helen, who died last year at the age of 80 after being diagnosed with kidney disease.
Sir Michael told the publication I dont have regrets really, but added: Perhaps towards the end, when I was doing the later travel journeys like North Korea.
Helen was then less well, less good at looking after herself, unfortunately, and that was a slightly difficult time.
The BBC and Sir Michael were contacted for comment.