Bill Bailey Articles/Reviews

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/...913740906.html

Wild, woolly and weird ... and then there's the hair

By Lenny Ann Low
March 18, 2005


"I came on and it must have looked like a hermit had been let out for the night" ... Bill Bailey, in Sydney for his one-man show, Part Troll.
Photo: Nick Moir



He's been described as a beardy-weirdy, a Klingon motivational speaker, Spinal Tap meets Middle Earth, and a woodland creature with "the worst haircut in the public eye".

And, to an extent, the confessed "1984 Michael Bolton look-alike regional finalist", Bill Bailey, agrees.

Best known as the downtrodden Manny of TV's Black Books, the hirsute British comic-musician, whose one-man show, Part Troll, opens on Sunday at the Sydney Theatre, is not fussed by critics' and fans' apparent obsession with his appearance.

"I did some gigs in America in some very trendy, edgy, Lower-East Side comedy clubs," said Bailey, who is renowned for his bewildered comedy style. "And all the male comics looked virtually indistinguishable. All a certain height with nicely combed hair, nice clothes, all clean-shaven and about the same age.

"And then I came on and it must have looked like a hermit had been let out for the night. A wild man who'd been living in a dump for several years.

"They were all looking at me like: "Oh, my God. He's got a beard and his hair, it's ... it's ... unkempt. And his clothes are badly ironed."

What they would have made of the news that Bailey and his wife have taken their two cockatoos for walks at home in London on pink and green leads, or that one of his favourite pastimes is pushing a transparent container into a suds-filled kitchen sink to view his dirty dishes, is appealing to think about, but untested.

In Part Troll, Bailey will push even further into the surreal nether worlds of his mind, with banjo interpretations of Led Zeppelin, the song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah as performed by Portishead, and the words of the US President, George Bush, via drum and bass rhythms.

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Bill Bailey is the shopkeeper from TV's Black Books - but he's also a musician and comic who is visiting Melbourne for the ninth time. Jo Roberts reports.

The first thing you notice is the globelike forehead, as comedian Bill Bailey steps out of the elevator of his Melbourne hotel to greet you. Then it's the large, powderblue eyes. Then the wispy locks, determinedly hanging on to what's left of his hairline. Were he actually in a scene from the hit TV series Black Books, as accident-prone, set-upon bookseller Manny, some frightful accident would likely befall him in the 10 metres he walks from the elevator to the lobby couch, where he sits down to share a pot of tea.

Bailey, 40, has become something of a comedy superstar since his last visit to Australia in 2002. And it's largely due to the success here of the Black Books television series, which enjoys a huge following. But despite his recent fame, Bailey has, in fact, been a regular visitor to Australia since 1996, having performed at about three Melbourne International Comedy Festivals and one Melbourne International Arts Festival, plus his own tours.

"I must have been here about eight times now," he says.
He was last here in 2002, touring a stand-up show "with an indeterminate name", which has evolved into the one he's performing on this visit, Part Troll, for the Comedy Festival.

Bailey was to have toured Part Troll — so-named, says Bailey, because he has such a hairy body — here last year, but cancelled after his mother was diagnosed with cancer. Thankfully, she's now on the mend. But the shock of his mother falling ill last year was tempered with the joy of becoming a father for the first time. He and wife Kristin have a son Dax. Now 15 months old, Dax has already been to his first Glastonbury Festival (Dad's been to about 10).

"He was taking it all in, watching the jugglers and stiltwalkers." Talking about the mega-festival, Bailey's eyes light up when he hears legendary Irish band the Undertones are reforming for this year's event.

"Brilliant! I was debating whether to go or not this year, but I'll definitely have to go, then." Bailey is an avid music fan, citing the Clash, the Buzzcocks, even Queens of the Stone Age among favourites. He's also a Dandy Warhols fan since meeting them in Australia several years ago when they appeared on the television show Recovery together — "They were obviously all off their chumps; they didn't know where they were or what they were doing!" — and even closes Part Troll with a Dandy Warhols song.

Bill Bailey, Dylan Moran and Tamsin Grieg in ABC TVs Black Books.
Photo:Supplied



"I just really warmed to their loose manner. I have a real affection for them."

Bailey's keen musicianship is on show in Part Troll. For those who didn't see him playing classical, jazz and honkytonk piano in one episode of Black Books (when Manny suddenly realises he can play piano), Part Troll has him playing piano, guitar, even the theremin, teaching himself the latter during a six-month stint in New York in 2002 when he performed two 10-week seasons.

"The theramin is something I've gotten quite into in the past few years ... It's a quite tricky, exacting kind of instrument to master," he says. "But when I was in New York, I'd just practise it every day, so I got really good at it. So at the end of the run (of shows), people would come up and say, 'Van, you just play some theramin, just play it!'."

Like The Office star Ricky Gervais, who used to play in bands and manage the once-huge British act Suede, Bailey also played in bands when he was growing up.

"Like many people, I harboured ambitions of being in bands from when I was an early age," he says. "I thought, 'This is what I wanna do, this is it. I just wanna play in a band and tour around and make albums and trash hotel rooms, it'll be great'. But then I went to see a few other kinds of shows: stand-up shows, comedy shows, theatre shows. I started thinking, 'There's more I want to do'."

It's turned into a brilliant career move for Bailey. But people hoping to see more of him in Black Books will be disappointed. The third series, he says, is the last.

"Dylan (Moran, the show's writer and star) is off doing other things, writing and appearing in films, and he's writing a book," says Bailey.

"There's some talk about doing it as a stage show — Black Books: The Musical," he muses.

The good news, however, is that Bailey, with fellow comic Sean Lock (also in town for MICF), is writing a series he'll star in, which is scheduled to start shooting later this year. As yet untitled, he describes it as a sketch show "a bit like The League of Gentlemen".

He'll also continue with Never Mind the Buzzcocks, a long-running British music-quiz show in which he's a team captain. And, shortly, his distinctive voice can be heard in the upcoming Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy film — as a sperm whale plummetting to Earth while achieving self-realisation.

"It's quite a sad part, really," he says. "He finally becomes sentient and then it's, 'Oh, hello Earth! Crack'."

Even in animation land, Bailey's still taking falls for laughs.

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http://www.theage.com.au/news/Review...525228554.html

Bill Bailey
Reviewer Helen Razer
March 24, 2005


British comedian Bill Bailley's musical blends marry any two genres that happen to be in his head.
Photo: Nicole Emanuel



Athenaeum Theatre until Sunday

Bill Bailey contends that he took out regional honours in a 1984 Michael Bolton look-alike competition. While this fanciful funny man does boast a do to rival Bolton's former foolish thatch strand for strand, all comparisons end beyond the barber's chair. British celeb Bill Bailey is droll, pleasantly irregular and a little bit bookish. Bolton is, well, Bolton.

Bailey's tremendous faculty for musical parody is revealed in the Australian debut of Part Troll. He's an accomplished instrumentalist who appends his wilfully silly songs to the show with an impeccable sense of rhythm. His musical and comedic timing is almost faultless.

Fans of trash will adore his odd musical blends. An unkempt civil celebrant with no regard for convention, Bailey will marry any two genres that happen to be in his head. Rapper Nelly is reborn with a Devonshire accent. Disney favourite Zippedy Doo Da is rendered in an eerily pretentious trip-hop humour. His electronic version of a German Hokey Cokey must be encountered first hand to be understood.

In word as in song, Bailey takes his audience on the most atypical journeys. In the sense that he impels a fusion of low-brow with high-brow, he is seamlessly hip. An erudite talker who flatters his audience with scholarly flotsam, Bailey delivers a show to which you could take your mum.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/edinb...534837,00.html


'You know, maybe I am the Messiah!'

Bill Bailey talks to Barbara Ellen about taking a break from stand-up comedy to appear in this year's buzz show, The Odd Couple

Sunday July 24, 2005
The Observer

Bill Bailey probably didn't mind when his Never Mind the Buzzcocks colleague Mark Lamarr labelled him 'Darwin's surprise'. In the past, he has described himself as 'Michael Bolton Stars in Their Eyes regional finalist' and '1987's International Face of Hemp'. Even his last tour was entitled Part Troll. In person, 40-year-old Bailey, with his wispy hair and beard, more resembles Spinal Tap's favourite roadie and is soft-voiced and droll with it.


'I always go and sit right at the back of every theatre I appear in,' he tells me. 'I want to imagine what punters would think, "I dressed up for this? I had a shower? Look at his hair! Look at his beard! What is he talking about?"' Appearing at Glastonbury in 2003 in front of a packed crowd seems to have further committed Bailey to keeping his ego in check: 'Way more people turned up than expected and I was a bit freaked, a bit wary of it. I could see myself surfing it, starting to believe it.' His eyes become ping-pong balls. 'You know, "Maybe I am the Messiah!"'



We are sitting in a pub near London Bridge, around the corner from where Bailey is rehearsing for the Neil Simon piece, The Odd Couple, where he is playing Oscar (the part made famous by Walter Matthau in the 1968 film), opposite his friend and fellow comic, Alan Davies, in the Jack Lemmon role. Director Guy Masterton who took successful comedian-packed productions of 12 Angry Men and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Edinburgh in previous years, feels the time is ripe for a revival. The Edinburgh production is one of the top-selling shows on the fringe, while the forthcoming Broadway version starring Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane has taken $5 million in advance sales.

Masterton is delighted with his two leads: 'The moment people see Bill and Alan together on stage, they're going to forget Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. They've got natural chemistry - you see it when they're together as friends. Bill can play the shambolic Oscar character very well while Alan is more precise.'

Bailey is also pleased to be working with Davies: 'If I forget my lines I could stick them on an ashtray or on to the back of Alan's head.'

For those surprised to see Bailey in a relatively straight role, it turns out acting was Bailey's 'first love'. Before getting into comedy, he applied to various drama schools and didn't get in. After drifting for a bit ('I don't mind the word "drift" - it sounds very relaxing'), he happened to visit a comedy club in Archway, where one of the acts was John Hegley. 'I'd never seen anything like it. I'm sure this is true for anyone who goes to see live stand-up comedy for the first time. It's like [feigns indignation], "How long has this been going on? Why haven't I been told? I've been going to see Saxon, and all this is going on!"'

It was from this point, 20 years ago, that Bailey began to develop his own brand of comedy, blending a skewed, far-reaching musicianship (Portishead do 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah', anybody?)that reflects an enduring DIY punk ethic (Bailey used to follow around the Clash and the Stranglers), a subtle but defiant intellectualism (his act brings in everything from astrophysics and philosophy to literature and politics) and, of course, the instant funnies that are to be had from his oddball appearance and deceptively vague, shambling manner. Such is Bailey's determined 'otherness' that fans have been taken aback to see him driving a mere van home from gigs. Bailey looks amused: 'It's like they expect to see me in a clown car or something made of wicker.'

These days, Bailey is well known for the sitcoms (Black Books, Spaced), as well as quiz shows (QI, Buzzcocks) and, of course, his sell-out live tours. He was nominated for the Perrier Award in 1996 (losing out to his Black Books co-star Dylan Moran) and was awarded Best Stand Up at the British Comedy Awards in 1999. However, it's been a long haul and, along the way, Bailey kept body and soul together doing everything from telesales to French theatre to playing piano in hotel bars. 'I think there's something to be said for a slow, gradual accretion of money and status,' shrugs Bailey. 'You appreciate it much more.'

Bailey agrees that his famously relaxed manner might have something to do with his stable upbringing in the West Country and life with his wife and young son in Hammersmith. 'I remember reading something about how the key to longevity as a comedian was mental stability. At the time I thought, "Bollocks, it's jokes, surely!" But as you go on, you realise it is actually about a stable home environment, a life other than this.'

His Part Troll routine included a Bush 'axis of evil' parody. It's unfashionable for comics to be political. Does he think comedy has a duty to reflect life? 'When you're a comic, you have a great opportunity to crystallise something that's happened in the news and make people think about things. Those are the champagne moments. If you can achieve some of those, it makes it worthwhile.'

Bailey's long-term ambitions are to keep stretching himself, both with comedy and acting projects such as The Odd Couple. 'Stand-up is very solitary, so being in a play is great. It's like being inside something and letting it take you along.'

Later, Bailey says his worst fear is 'waking up one day and finding I've lost my wits', though that doesn't seem very likely with this most laid-back and grounded of comedians. On reflection, does he think he might have been spoiled if he had enjoyed instant success? 'Oh, possibly.' Bailey puts down his pint loftily. 'I probably wouldn't even be in this pub. I'd be in a biodome somewhere, and this interview would have been planned months in advance.' · The Odd Couple is at the Assembly Rooms from 5 - 29 August. 0131 226 2428 or www.edfringe.com

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http://www.channel4.com/news/content...jsp?id=1682952

Bill Bailey battles bear bullies

Last Modified: 12 Dec 2005
Source: ITN

Comedian Bill Bailey has travelled to India to help bring attention to the cruelty inflicted on the so-called dancing bears.

Volunteers from International Animal Rescue filmed the barbaric practice which is still going on despite being made illegal.

For 300 years the bear has been kept in captivity where they are subject to appalling treatment and during the day made to dance for the crowds.


Bill Bailey, the self-confessed 'bug-eyed wizard' of comedy, explained how the bears are brought down from the Himalayas and forced to perform in the heat of lowland cities jerked into the familiar so-called dancing movements by the sharp agonising tug of a length of rope threaded through the bear's nose.

He also visited a sanctuary for rescued bears which is funded by International Animal Rescue