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Bill Bailey: The man, the musician, the comic, the troll, the legend

20 years on from taking the Time Out Comedy Award

Orchestral manœuvres

As for Bill Bailey’s own recorded work, his Bewilderness, Cosmic Jam, Part Troll, Dandelion Mind and Tinselworm DVDs – usually taken from tours of the same name – have all been incredibly popular.

Indeed, Tinselworm ended up selling tens of thousands of DVDs after the tour had filled both London’s Wembley Arena and Manchester’s massive MEN Arena, while Part Troll and its Argos jokes are fast becoming the stuff of comedy legend.

Bill Bailey – Argos – Part Troll

These shows were also quite informative – as was, in a slightly more formal way, his Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra which was staged at the Royal Albert Hall in November 2009. Proof, if it were ever needed, that the pitch perfect BB had once received an Associate Diploma from the London College of Music.

Bill Bailey – Cow Bells – Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra

Being based in Hammersmith, West London, Bailey is an unashamed QPR fan as well as being a long standing member of the Labour Party. He also supports an array of other “good causes” such as feminism, prostate cancer prevention, environmental conservation and animal rights – both of the latter coming together in his recent two part BBC2 TV documentary Bill Bailey’s Jungle Hero, about the Vicwardian explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.

Bailey is now, despite his occasional acerbic moments, generally seen in his native land as a much-loved “good thing”. In 2010, as in 2007, this popularity was reflected by the fact he was voted the seventh greatest stand-up comic of all time on Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Stand-ups. The next year, as if to cement his role in the nation’s consciousness, he made a star guest appearance in the Doctor Who Christmas special The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

Bill Bailey - Qualmpeddler art work

Surreal estate: art work for the Qualmpeddler tour and 2013 DVD

Some of his influences – Spike Milligan, and the Monty Python crew – are fairly obvious, others are totally off the dial. It’s a factor that has already made his surrealism something of a force in itself – an influence on both “up and coming” stand-up comics and on UK comedy in general.

While some other 21st Century comics have tended to sound stale after just a year or two, Bill Bailey remains endlessly inventive, a British national treasure with a pretty big, and pretty devoted, fan base. These fans will no doubt be pleased to hear that his new Limboland world tour brings the great man back to the UK very soon, with previews starting at the end of this month. ®

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