Michael Palin In North Korea: What the reviewers think
BBC Radio 5 Live Afternoon Edition's TV reviewers this week are Boyd Hilton from Heat Magazine and journalist Hayley Campbell. They're sharing their thoughts on Channel 5's new documentary, Michael Palin in North Korea.
And Michael joined us to talk about filming the documentary.
What did you think? Leave your reviews below...
Michael Palin was a guest on BBC Radio 5 Live, talking about his documentary.
He explained what it was like in North Korea:
"There wasn’t actually the sinister side that I expected, it didn’t feel like a cowed and coerced state at all," he said.
"That’s not to say there wasn’t some of that in the background - I think it’s just that they all agree that the great leaders are the most wonderful people in the world. There’s almost a religious fervour attached to their devotion to their leaders which is ironic as it’s an atheist country."
Palin explained that some restriction was necessary in order to gain access to the country: "You have to be honest - you have to say 'we are here in North Korea, we are restricted by a number of people who are with us all the time', but if we hadn’t been able to negotiate a way of getting here with a film crew - which is very, very rare indeed - we wouldn’t have been able to show anything of the country.
"You have to accept their rules but the more they trust you the more they’ll let you see of the country. And we did see an awful lot," he said.
"We filmed for about two weeks, and I don’t know of any film crew that’s been allowed that sort of access. It wasn’t party political, in the sense that we had politicians wagging their fingers at us. We were able to talk to farmers and their children and people at sporting events and people in the parks. We had quite a lot of access."
What did the reviewers think?
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Hayley says: "I loved it"
"I loved this. I was worried that he was being monitored by minders who were telling him what to shoot, what not to shoot and what not to say, and I was worried it was going to be 'Michael Palin does propaganda for North Korea', but it definitely isn’t.
"He [Palin] will tell you, 'I wanted to tell you this but I wasn’t allowed, I thought they were telling me this but it turns out that was for my benefit'.
"I thought this was a really good show and weirdly comforting because Michael Palin is such a comforting character to have around.
"So even though he’s wandering around this city which is a terrifying place on the news, if you put Michael Palin in it and just film him walking around drinking coffee, it just becomes this surreal place where there are no cars and everything is too organised.
"So it’s a very different North Korea to the one we are shown in the propaganda and in the news. I loved it."
Boyd says: "It's the best thing that's ever been on Channel 5"
"He’s wryly funny and he’s still got that comic timing, but I loved the transparency of it as well.
"You go with him because it’s like you’re there with him taking these steps into this completely alien world, at the same time realising that tens of millions of three-dimensional human beings are living in this place which is so alien to them and you get to know they’re living their best lives even in this oppressive world.
"There's not a better person to take us through that than him.
"I'm saying it's the best thing that's ever been on Channel 5."
