BILL BAILEY

BILL BAILEY THE MULTI-TALENTED ENTERTAINER

WHEN comedian Bill Bailey waltzed, quick-stepped and hiphopped his way to the glitterball trophy in December, 2020, he became the oldest celebrity contestant to win Strictly Come Dancing.

He was probably also the unlikeliest winner because the smart money would not have been on a balding 55 year-old with no track record of dancing. However, the gambling sceptics would have been badly wrong.

Our Bill proved to be a light-footed, athletic dancer, a quick learner with dance partner Oti Mabuse and a delight to watch. Not to mention a poster-boy for all males over 50 who believed they could never be a dance hero.

Yet, a quick look at Bill Bailey’s background – and a seat at any of his many sell-out shows – would reveal a multi-talented entertainer with daredevil inclinations when it comes to tackling new challenges.

Born Mark Robert Bailey in Bath, Somerset his father was a GP. Bill recalls: “He taught me patience. It sounds like a terrible pun but it’s true. He has an immense ability to listen.” Bill was educated at the independent King Edwards School and was highly academic until around the age of 15 when the thrill of performance as a member of the school band distracted him. He did, though, take his music A level (which he passed with an A grade) and later became a classically trained musician at the London College of Music.

He was also a keen – and talented – cricketer, often leading the singing on the long coach journey back from away fixtures. He was given the nickname Bill by his music teacher for being able to play the song Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey so well on the guitar.

Recalled Bill: “None of the kids knew what he was on about, but it stuck.”

Bill started his studies for an English degree at the University of London but left after a year. He performed with a boy band called The Famous Five and also got early acting roles – including a part in the Workers’ Revolutionary Party’s stage production of The Printers which also featured Vanessa Redgrave.

Born with a lively sense of humour and a vivid imagination, Bill began touring with comedians like Mark Lamarr and in 1984 formed a double act, the Rubber Bishops, with Toby Longworth. Here he began developing his own style, mixing musical parodies with a personal take on traditional jokes and humour.

He combined his theatrical talents and comedy in 1993 when he performed in Rock at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Sean Lock. The show was about an ageing rockstar and his roadie and was later serialised for the Mark Radcliffe show on BBC Radio 1.

Bill’s career at this stage was not yet soaring so he went solo the next year with a one-man show Bill Bailey’s Cosmic Jam. This led to a recording at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London which was broadcast in 1997 on Channel 4 as a one-hour special called Bill Bailey Live.

This was the first time that Bill’s trademark combination of music, post-modern gags and funny ramblings came together to create the style that would make him famous.

In 1998, the BBC gave him his own TV show Is It Bill Bailey? and he won the Best Live Stand-Up award at the British Comedy Awards the following year. Bill Bailey had arrived.

Guest appearances on radio and TV shows like Have I Got News For You and Room 101 introduced Bill to a wider audience. His quick wits made him a regular on intellectual panel game QI and he had several acting roles on TV programmes including E4 teenage series Skins, the BBC show Hustle, Jonathan Creek, Midsomer Murders and Worzel Gummidge.

He also starred in cult comedies Spaced and Black Books.

It is, however, his stage shows which have consolidated his fan base and earned him new followers all over the world. Last year, he took his new touring show En Route To Normal to venues across the UK and Ireland and this year he is off further afield to Europe and later in the year to Australia.

Bill is an accomplished musician and plays a variety of instruments including piano, guitar and keyboards. He is a big fan of progressive rock and heavy metal and presented Peter Gabriel with the Prog God award at the 2014 Progressive Music Awards.

He is plainly an admirer of Gabriel whom he has described as “perhaps the most ambitious, influential and innovative musical wizard on the planet.”

He is an avid Star Trek fan and in 2003 named his son after the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 character Dax.

In fact, he often refers to himself as a Klingon and claimed, during his Part Troll tour, that his ear-mounted microphone made him look like “a wizard in a call centre and “a Klingon motivational speaker.”

Bill keeps an open mind about all new areas of music. He once said: “I don’t reject popular culture – I’m not the sort of grumpy old man who says ‘Well, I actually switched off after 1982.’ “Good music is being made all the time; you just have to filter out the chaff. And there is a lot of chaff, unfortunately.”

Bill Bailey is not your ordinary Joe to behold, either. He auditioned for the role of Gimli the dwarf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001 and his nickname is Bilbo.

The long, untidy hair, the beard and the piercing eyes are now immediately recognisable. “I first grew a beard out of terror,” he reported.

“About 20 years ago, my friend and I were staying in a very heavy area off Times Square in New York. People would stick drugs in your pocket and then say you owed them money. We grew emergency beards and affected the hobo look to protect ourselves.”

And it looks very much like this eccentric image has helped Bill Bailey win hearts and minds ever since. Oh, and that glitterball trophy.