AS HIS new travel series continues on Australia's television screens this week, Monty Python star Michael Palin has other business on his mind.

Mr Palin and his Python colleagues Terry Jones and Eric Idle will appear in the United Kingdom's High Court in a new row over royalties from the Python musical Spamalot.

The Independent reported the Python team were being challenged by Mark Forstater, the producer of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for a bigger cut of the Spamalot profits.

Mr Forstater's lawyers will also argue he should be regarded as the "seventh Python" - putting him alongside Jones, Palin, Idle, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman.

The High Court case is the latest in a series of royalty arguments among the Python team, coming a year after Idle sacked Cleese from the role of the voice of God in the musical.