Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A comedian and actor known for inventive stand-up and TV appearances on Have I Got News for You, QI, and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
On the island
Eight records
It's just a joyful celebration of musicianship. And it just makes me smile every time I hear it. You know, I just need to put it on and I just get a kind of surge of adrenaline.
I loved going to see Punk when I was a teenager. And this was a classic punk track. I've very vivid memories of going to see them at the Colston Hall in Bristol and thinking this was the greatest, the greatest gig I'd ever seen.
Once in a LifetimeFavourite
I often listen to the keyboard part and think perhaps I could have done that.
Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major, K. 537, "Coronation" (First Movement)
I chose this piece because this was uh my first proper recital that I gave to the public... it's very technically um demanding, lots of long, sparkling runs and it's just uh a milestone for me of performance.
I went to see David Bowie at the Milton King's Bowl in 1983. I was 18. This was the first big gig I've been to. It was fantastic... when he came out, when he appeared on the stage in this white suit and just walked from the back of the stage, it was like some kind of s religious experience.
I just thought I had a bit of a teenage crush on her. And I did a gig and she was in the audience. I came off stage and there was a long corridor... she came up to me and she just she looked up and she goes, Hi she goes, uh I really enjoyed your set And uh I just burst out I think you're brilliant
It's otherworldly. My first time I experienced it was in Java... it just happens, it kind of flows over you. And uh for that I I love it. I love its otherness.
Requiem, Op. 48: VII. In Paradisum
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, New Philharmonia Orchestra & Sir David Willcocks
It was the music we played at my mum's funeral... it's kind of music which for a while you're not aware of instruments being played or songs being sung. You're just aware of something else.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:10Which particular boxes [of being neurotic, brilliant, strange, or an egotistical lunatic] do you tick?
Certainly neurotic in the way that you can get quite obsessed by it... You what do you mean you you you can't sleep because you can't think of this way this punch line's gonna work... It sounds inconsequential and mad and a bit neurotic, but actually that's what we do.
Presenter asks
4:50What did you make of [your dad's GP surgery in the house] as a little boy?
I see you grow up with it, and you think that's normal, you think this is what everyone has in their houses.
Presenter asks
8:22How did you become Bill Bailey?
I ended up uh as Bill because I had a geography teacher at school who decided this was my nickname. It was because of this song, you know, the classic Oh, Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey.
Presenter asks
10:14The keepsakes
The luxury
solitaire, you can build them up into a lovely um pyramid, throw them into a old coconut shell, the possibilities are endless.
When did [you start to fall behind at school and get distracted]?
That probably started around about the fourth or fifth year at school... Fifteen there. I was distracted by other things, bands, playing in bands.
Presenter asks
21:07Where does that confidence come from [to walk out in front of twelve thousand people]?
You have to go into a bit of a zone before you do something like that. You have to kind of look yourself in the eye and say... you you can do this because It's very hard... to do that if you'd just been doing something very mundane, like taking the bins out.
Presenter asks
27:25How difficult is it to combine the rock and roll stadium life of stand-up tours with taking Dax to school and emptying the bins?
Yeah, it is a bit tricky. I like to do both. I don't like to just go off and go on tour and go into a bubble. I like to go home and do all those normal things. It keeps your head in the right place, I think.
“I suppose I thrived I had I enjoyed the attention.”
“I always am reminded of a bit of advice that a very fine comedian called Bob Mills once told me... he said keep saying funny things. And it sounds like a sort of truism, but it's absolutely right. You can get distracted by trying to educate or trying to be too intellectual. Just keep saying funny things. As long as they're funny.”
“I started to get a bit delirious walking back from the city to the road where the van was going to pick us up... I started to do my act, my 20-minute walking along and going, good evening. To myself. And when I got to, thank you very much. Good night. I thought we might as well we'll be there. And of course we went. We were hours away.”