Liz Nicholls chats to comedian, author & dad Bill Bailey about the release of his new book My Animals & Other Animals, his upcoming Thoughtifier comedy show tour & more
Q. Hello Bill! Your Thoughtifier show sounds a bit like a celebration of flawed humanity… so are we doomed?
“Well, yeah, obviously, at some point, because we’re gradually drifting towards the sun. But we don’t have to worry about that! That’s a long way off. But I think there’s been this general worry, this panic about AI and that robots will take over and we’ll be rendered helpless husks. All our jobs will be replaced and there’ll be no more films or art or music or books or literature: all of that will be replaced and we’re essentially redundant. This show is very much a rebuttal of that! Because we are capable of extraordinary things. The Olympics, for example, makes you think, wow, humans are amazing, we’re capable of incredible feats. And this show is very much about that. Not maybe sporting feats, but in terms of artistic, intellectual thoughts, you know, consciousness, music, that, you know, the way that we able to create music is something I just find amazing. And in the show, I invite the audience to create something on the spur of the moment. We create harmony, rhythm, the building blocks of music right there. And then I compare that to how AI might do it. And so it’s really, as you say, a celebration of us as a species. Rather than panic about AI and worry about how much it’s going to take over, I just think we ought to celebrate ourselves a bit more, revel in human achievement and creativity.”
Q. Absolutely! You mentioned music there, Bill… What’s your first memory of music?
“At home, listening to my mum singing along to the radio, because she had the radio on all the time. She’d sing along to hits of the day; one that sticks in my mind is a song by Perry Como called Magic Moments. It’s got a jaunty whistling solo in it and a clarinet solo… I mean, how many songs can you say that about!? None. No, there aren’t any. And I have thought about it! Despite not being able to play, I picked out tunes on the piano as a result of hearing them on the radio. So I think just hearing music around all the time was an influence.”
Q. You’ve been called ‘one of comedy’s most twinkle-toed talents’. Do you still dance about a fair bit now after that Strictly win?
“Yeah. I do incorporate dance into my live shows. There’s a bit of Paso Doble in there and, actually, I recreate the UN Charter in dance form and I put a bit of Charleston in there as well. But the thing is about when you’re on that show [Strictly] is that you get to dance to all these things that I would hitherto never have in my wildest dreams thought would be appearing on a ballroom dancing show… Like Metallica’s Enter Sandman or, you know, Rapper’s Delight or Blondie. It’s not really about the rhythm itself. It’s about the upper section of those songs. It’s sort of thinking, well, those are rock songs, metal songs, rap songs, whatever, but dance is very specific. It’s very precise. It’s about numbers of beats. If you look at it in its basic form, it’s rhythm. It’s about, you know, tempo. When you realise that, it’s like a huge door opening, a big light bulb going off thinking, wow, there’s all this music out there which can be attributed to all these different dances. So after I did Strictly, I’d be walking in the supermarket listening to a bit of music thinking, oh, this could be a tango. Music is amazingly adaptable.”
Q. You played at Sonisphere: you like a bit of metal, don’t you? Who’s your favourite band?
“Yeah, I like metal. It’s difficult to choose my all-time favourite band but probably Talking Heads. I was a huge fan of them when I first heard their album Remain in Light. That’s a long time ago now. I mean, that’s when I was 15. But I mean, I like a lot of metal bands purely for their musical ambition. They’re technically incredibly proficient, they’re brilliant players, musically really ambitious. Lots of time signature changes, tempo changes. I love bands like Opeth; they’re a Swedish metal band, they’re more like a melodic metal band now, they have an enormous range of music, from growly metal to incredibly lyrical, melodic metal. The lead singer Mikael [Åkerfeldt], who I know, now writes music for Netflix series and so on so he’s a composer. There’s a lot of bands I love: a current favourite is a band called Heilung – they’re a German/Danish/Norwegian pagan metal outfit and they do amazing shows, very theatrical. They’re wearing robes and antlers and a shaman comes out and brings incense on the stage and they bang tribal drums and they play traditional instruments and combine that with music and electronics and sampling. They’re just like nothing else I’ve seen: they don’t even call them shows, they call them rituals. The music is monumental and delicate and powerful and ancient and contemporary all at the same time, they defy description.”
Q. I will check them out! Your memoir My Animals and Other Animals sounds like a right treat. So who’s in your menagerie at the moment? I can see you in your conservatory there. Do you have pets at home with you now?
“Yeah, we’ve got three dogs and we’ve got four parrots and that’s our core, that’s the main game. And then we’ve got various others which are not really pets, they’re animals that we’re looking after, rescue animals. So we’ve got a few frogs, sort-of tree frogs, and we’ve got some lizards, pheasants, armadillos. Armadillos are great: when you put them down, they just sort of, they scuttle around, but you can’t see their feet. So it just looks like they’re weird remote control lawn mowers.”
Q. No one seems to have a bad word to say about you, Bill. You definitely cheer people up, but I’m wondering: do you ever get grumpy? Does anything get your goat? Go on…
“Oooh [ponders awhile], I don’t like it when you’re in the supermarket and you put some fresh herbs, coriander, say, in your basket and then you put your basket down and you go and get something, come back and somebody’s… TAKEN THE CORIANDER!”
Q. Where does this happen!? And what do you do: properly kick off?
“I just go, WHAT THE S&*^! and smash all the food off the shelves. No, not really. But maybe I should start smashing jars of pickles, shouting ‘GIVE ME BACK MY CORIANDER, YOU BASTARD!’ But no, I just go and get some more. It’s rude, but it’s not technically theft as you haven’t actually bought it so it’s not even technically yours. Ummm, what else? I don’t like rudeness, poor manners. Litter, GRRR! I actually risk life and limb, sometimes, chasing after people because I see somebody dropping something, and I pick it up and go after them, going ‘Excuse me, oh sorry, excuse me but you dropped something’. People are so shocked that they usually take it and bin it. But it might go wrong one day and someone will tell me where I can stick their Nando’s wrapper. It’s a very British approach, a little bit passive aggressive…”
Q. I grew to love you on [the iconic TV show] Spaced which I’m still obsessed with… I mean the cast on that! Do you keep in touch with any of them? I’d like to think you’re all pals…
“Spaced is brilliant, yeah! Do you know what? It’s very bad, but we haven’t really kept in touch. And although I did bump into Jess [Hynes] at Chelsea Flower Show, which was a joyous, unexpected Spaced reunion!”
Q. You performed for the King, haven’t you, and you’ve met him several times. Are you mates, maybe WhatsApp buddies?
“Yeah, yeah, there’s like a big crown symbol in my phone and I just press that… No! I haven’t got his number! He watched my show which had a section with cowbells in it and he loved that. Afterwards he said to me [adopts Charles voice]: ‘Um, so how do you get the cows to nod their heads in the right order?’ There I was thinking, ‘am I getting trolled by the by the monarch!?’ And then he started asking me about my six-neck electric guitar. He was going: ‘how do you play a six-neck guitar? Do you to have a false arm or something?’ And I was like [patiently]: ‘Er no, you don’t need a false arm.’ But then afterwards I thought, that’s actually not a bad idea! I should just get a false arm.”
Q. Maybe he’s got one?
“Maybe! I think, if anyone in the land is going to have a false arm, it’s the royals, isn’t it? All that waving. Maybe that was just a false arm in the carriage when we thought the Queen was waving. She was probably on her Game Boy or something. Maybe doing a bit of knitting out of sight.”
Q. You’re off on another tour. What’s your favourite venue & do you mingle with the fans?
“Do you know what? I’ve been around the world and I… hang on, that sounds like a song, doesn’t it!? But yeah my favourite is the Hammersmith Apollo at the end of my road. Honestly, it’s one of the best. It’s a brilliant venue for comedy. And being able to cycle round there in five minutes is a massive plus! Yes, when I come out the theatre there are crowds of people and I’m like: ‘Get away from me!’ No: I always say hi to people. Some people have this ludicrous tiered system: you know, there’s the bronze meet-and-greet and then there’s the silver VIP and then the gold one where you can touch his sleeve for four seconds. But I just think it’s all bollocks. I just come out and say hello and take a picture. I’m talking about after the show, you understand, not inviting them on stage to be in a skit with Bill Bailey. I always try and make time for people if I can. I hang around, you know, behind the theatre, at the stage door. Even if there’s no one there…. Hello, anyone? Selfie, anyone?!”
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