Desert Island Discs from outside. Roy Plomley enforced these rules strictly. He did, however, grant a special dispensation to Princess Michael of Kent, who chose her pet cat. The rules are, however, less strictly enforced today; for instance, Lawley allowed John Cleese to take Michael Palin with him, on the condition that he was dead and stuffed. Examples of luxuries have included champagne and a piano, the latter of which is one of the most requested luxuries. After Plomley's death in 1985, the programme was presented by Michael Parkinson and from 1988 by Sue Lawley. Lawley stepped down in August 2006 after 18
Michael Palin In 1991 Palin appeared in a film, "American Friends", he wrote based upon a real event in the life of his great-grandfather, a fellow at St John's College, Oxford. In that same year he also played the part of a headmaster in Alan Bleasdale's Channel 4 drama series "GBH". Palin also had a small cameo role in Australian soap opera "Home and Away". He played an English surfer with a fear of sharks, who interrupts a conversation between two main characters to ask whether there were any sharks in the sea. This was filmed while he was in Australia for