Following his hugely successful 2008 Australian live tour of his hit show Tinselworm, British comic and musician Bill Bailey returns down under with his brand new live show, Bill Bailey Live.
“Consistently Brilliant” - The Observer
Kicking off on Thursday, 1 July in Newcastle, the tour will take in Newcastle, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Launceston, Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney, before culminating in Canberra on Friday 30 July.
Are you sure about our world? How many things do you actually know for certain? There’s not much about the world that is simply black and white, apart from pandas maybe and OK, skunks, but that’s about it. Most of our world is a grey area, and this is where Bill Bailey is going on his next tour. A magical, musical, mystery tour through a human history filled with doubt, to a place where certainty reigns and where religion, death, egg-custard, twigs, and giant African land snails are here to stay. So do you refuse to accept there are things you don’t understand, do you desire to see the world only in black and white, or do you accept doubt into your life, make uncertainty your friend, do you embrace the greyness? There is also a complex subtext about clouds, squirrels and getting older, but you’ll have to figure that out for yourself…
Following his performances at London’s Royal Albert Hall and the resulting critically acclaimed BBC2 television broadcast, last autumn Bill enjoyed a very successful UK tour of his hilarious musical extravaganza, Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra. Performing alongside some of the UK’s finest orchestras, the show provided fans with the opportunity to see Bill’s surreal comic and musical imagination at its best and was described by The London Guardian as “sublime hilarity” and Stephen Fry as “wonderfully enjoyable… like driving a Rolls-Royce off-road.”
British Comedy Award winner Bill has enjoyed success on the live stage for many years. In 2001 he took his show Bewilderness to New York for an eight week run at the Westbeth Theatre. The New York Times wrote of him, “Bill is an unalloyed pleasure, a treat for the funny bone, the brain and the ear” and The Telegraph pronounced him “a hobbit with a wicked sense of humour”. In 2004 he performed his show Part Troll at over fifty venues around the UK, culminating in an extended run at London’s Wyndhams Theatre. In 2007 he embarked on a sold-out UK arena tour with his groundbreaking audio-visual feast, Tinselworm. He took the show down under during the summer of 2008, touring Australia and New Zealand, before returning to London in December 2008 for a ten week run of the show at the Gielgud Theatre. The summer of 2009 saw Bill tour the UK once again with his live show, Bill Bailey Live.
Bill has also performed at the Edinburgh Festival almost every year since his debut in 1996 when he was nominated for the prestigious Perrier Award for his stand-up show Cosmic Jam. The fringe has also seen Bill branch out as a dramatic actor, firstly in an extremely well-received production of 12 Angry Men, as the restrained Juror 4, two years later as the slouchy, unkempt Oscar in the equally acclaimed, The Odd Couple.
Having taken over from Sean Hughes in 2002, following eleven successful and enjoyable series, autumn 2008 saw Bill step down from his role as team captain on one of the UK’s longest running music/comedy panel shows, Never Mind The Buzzcocks (BBC2).
In addition to Buzzcocks, Bill’s TV portfolio includes three series of the hit black comedy Black Books (C4) in which he played the increasingly deranged ex-accountant Manny Bianco opposite fellow comic Dylan Moran, acclaimed comedy Spaced (C4) and Is It Bill Bailey? (BBC2). He appeared in the UK comedy drama serial Jonathan Creek (BBC1) as well as the edgy teen drama Skins (C4). Bill has guest hosted the satirical panel show, Have I Got News for You (BBC1) and can be seen as a regular panelist on QI (BBC1). Bill has also hosted both the wildlife series Wild Thing I Love You (C4) and the more recent Bill Bailey’s Birdwatching Bonanza (Sky1), in which he tracked down some of the UK’s most elusive birds.
On the big screen, Bill appeared in the film Saving Grace, had a cameo appearance in the comedy feature Hot Fuzz and can be seen playing Farmer Macreadie in the current comedy sequel, Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. Most recently Bill has filmed roles in the upcoming comedies Burke and Hare and Chalet Girl.
“As perfect a comedy package as you could hope to find” - The Sunday Times
Bill has long been a supporter of numerous charities including International Animal Rescue, with whom he visited dancing bear sanctuaries in India in 2005, as well as Stand Up For Animals, The Sumatran Orangutan Society, Comic Relief and Bowel Cancer UK, for whom he’s appeared at various benefit gigs.
Bill is currently developing ideas for film and television with his own production company, Glassbox Productions, who are responsible for bringing to the screen Tinselworm and Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra.