Michael Palin gives 'doomed' health update after horror fall in his bathroom

Sir Michael Palin is still unable to walk unaided more than a month after a fall at home left him with broken ribs.

Sir Michael gave fans an update on Instagram, posting a photograph of himself standing in a disabled road bay.

The actor, 83, wrote: “It’s now exactly a month since I thudded to my bathroom floor – returning from a pee at 3.30 in the morning. I still can’t walk without a Zimmer.

“The laughs are all on me. Zimmers were used in Monty Python when we wanted to play slow-moving elderly people.”

He added: “Now I’m an elderly person for real, having to move very slowly as I have three broken ribs and a cracked pelvis. Bones take time to heal and I’m probably doomed to play this particular Python character for a few weeks more.”

Recovery, he said, involves a “stack of books” to read, plus screen time in front of the spy thriller Slow Horses and This City Is Ours.

Sir Michael also referenced a well-loved Monty Python sketch he performed with John Cleese, adding: “If things get really low, the Fish Slapping Dance.”

He said: “I promise not to go to the bathroom ever again, and I shall try and find some other show dates next year. Thank you all for your patience. Here’s to the next time.”

Sir Michael announced his fall in October, saying: "My accident was quite unsensational, a slip in the family bathroom where I’ve walked for 58 years.

"I fell heavily on my left side resulting in three fractured ribs and a minor pelvic fracture. The recovery of bone fractures takes a long time, especially when you’re 83."

Sir Michael Palin shared a health update on Instagram (Ian West/PA)

Making light of the incident with a nod to a famous Monty Python sketch featuring John Cleese, he added: "It was a comedy fall with no audience there to see it. I shall stick to fish slapping dances from now on.”

Sir Michael signed off: "Sincere apologies to everyone who has already put in a lot of work on the tour. I’d also like to say a huge thanks to the NHS for their incredible care."

Sir Michael has continued to throw himself into travelling around the world since the death of his wife of 57 years, Helen Gibbins, in 2023 from chronic pain and kidney failure.

The couple met at the seaside when he was still a teenager and Sir Michael described her as “the bedrock of my life.”

“We were together for a very long time. We were married for 57 years and I met her before that so more than two thirds of my life was spent with her. And so you form a kind of unit,” he said on Rob Brydon’s Wondery podcast Brydon &.

“You don’t realise that until someone’s gone and then it’s slightly lopsided, like something tips over, and your rudder goes. You end up thinking it was just me but I need my partner there to sort of keep me on the straight and narrow.”