A Long And Rambling Chat With Bill Bailey

With his often surrealist turns on cult favourites Black Books, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and countless comedy specials, Bill Bailey’s earned a reputation as one of the more eccentric minds in comedy. It’s something we discovered firsthand during our wide-ranging interview: one minute he’s talking about tinkering away on a reggae version of the Downton Abbey theme, the next he’s discussing a serious talk he’s working on about 19th-century naturalist, Alfred Wallace.

Needless to say, his new stand-up DVD Qualmpeddler covers an equal amount of ground, from technology anxiety to owl liberation in China. We sat down with Bill to try and get to the bottom of it all, starting with the title.

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Junkee: First of all, I have to ask about the title Qualmpeddler — where does that come from?
Bill Bailey: I like to try and think up new and interesting names for shows, and there’s a practical element to it, because there are so many shows and so many choices out there that if you think of a new word, an internet search will lead everyone straight to your show. I always like to invent new words for that reason. I like the word, because ‘qualms’ are worries — concerns and anxieties. ‘Peddler’ is an old medieval term for people who would go around and sell their wares, itinerant hawkers who’d set up shop anywhere. I see comedians a bit like that: itinerants travelling around the world, setting our stalls out and saying, “See anything you like?” In this case, I felt like I was setting my stall up to display my anxieties about the world. The title has grown on me; it feels like an ancient term for what stand-up comedy is.

What kind of anxieties did you have at the time?
The show is my thoughts about politics, celebrity, society, social media, the encroachment of social media on language, the lack of attention span in the modern age… There’s music in the show, as well. I did a reggae version of the Downton Abbey theme, which went down quite well, and I also tried to incorporate contemporary music into old-fashioned religious songs, so I did a dubstep hymn. That was the first half of the show, and the second half is personal recollection about the travel I’ve done recently.

I spent a lot of time in China last year, which got me thinking about language and about being understood in a different culture. There’s a tale I tell about finding an owl in a restaurant in China, and the subsequent experience of liberating it. That grew into a huge part of the show. My son was 8 when we were travelling in China, and he had a little camera, which he used to film footage of us setting the owl free. I didn’t realise until much, much later that I could use it in the show. It was actually in Australia last year where I started using it for the first time. It got an amazing reaction; I was knocked sideways.

How did the owl story become such a big part of the show?
Well, I’d always mention the owl and the fact that we’d found it in a restaurant and set it free, and then one night I thought I’d try and use the footage. I think I was in Brisbane when I tried this for the first time. I told the story as normal that night, but I left it hanging, and I didn’t tell people that we’d released the owl. At the end of the night, people were shouting out “What happened to the owl?” and so I played the film for them. There were people standing, weeping, and it was totally unexpected. There’s something very emotional about seeing a wild animal return to the wild — it’s a powerful moment. I don’t often use audience shots because I don’t like cutaways to the audience laughing, but we shot the audience on that night, and I allowed two audience shots, because they’re unbelievable, unlike anything I’ve seen in my shows. People were just sitting there open-mouthed. It’s probably the most personal thing I’ve done in a show, the greatest attempt at a poignant ending I’ve ever done.

How did you get your hands on the owl?
We just haggled for it. At first they were very suspicious of us, they thought we were some activists or something like that, environmentalists, but we offered to part with hard cash, and then they were all smiles, they didn’t care who we were. We were on a complete high for days afterwards; it was tremendous.

It sounds like music is a big part of Qualmpeddler, as it is with all your stand-up shows. I’m curious to ask, did you take piano lessons from a young age?
Yes, we had a piano in the house, and I used to go and pick out tunes on the piano when I was young. It’s a great thing to have growing up. My mum used to encourage me from an early age, and it carried on for my whole school life. I did piano lessons and I picked up guitar along the way, so when I started to perform, it seemed like a natural thing to use an instrument. I used guitar for a long time, but then I realised that if I was in a theatre for more than one night, a keyboard might be better. That was a big moment. I used the piano for the first time at the Edinburgh Festival one year, and that was a bit of a light bulb moment. I’ve incorporated them into the set ever since.

Have you ever run into any of your old piano teachers? I imagine they’d be quite surprised to see what you’re doing now …
Yes I have. It’s a funny story. A few years ago, I was approached by The Guardian newspaper in the UK, and they told me they were doing a story interviewing well-known people about teachers they may have found influential at school. I told them that my old piano teacher Linda was a big inspiration on me, so I did an interview and wrote a piece on her saying that she had a great passion for the subject, and inspired me to learn all sorts of things outside the curriculum, pursue other kinds of music and pick up other instruments. She was a very significant figure in my life. Anyway, what they didn’t tell me was that they were contacting her as well — they tracked her down and she wrote about me. I hadn’t been in contact with her for 20 years, at least. It was quite amazing hearing her voice again.

So you were able to meet her again?
I was performing in Cambridge when they told me there was someone at the stage door to see me, and it was her; she’d managed to track me down. It was incredible. She came to the show, and after that, we were in touch quite a bit. I got involved in one of her projects that she was doing; she was head of music at a school, and we worked together. What I didn’t know is that she was very ill at the time, and sadly, she died not long after that. It was lovely to see her again, and to tell her that she’d inspired me to do what I do. It’s a real privilege to be able to do that.

Oh wow, that’s really incredible…
I feel very lucky that I was able to find someone who inspired me years ago and tell them what they meant. There was one pivotal moment that I still remember. There was a recital and I didn’t want to perform in it because I didn’t have the confidence, but she pushed me into it. I ended up playing a Mozart piano concerto in front of a huge crowd, with an orchestra. I would have never dreamed of doing that had she not persuaded me that I could. I think that’s very important for kids: in a time when you’re trying to find your own way, it’s great to have someone say, “I know you can do this.” That’s really the essence of education, and I feel very lucky that it happened to me, and even more lucky that I was able to tell her that.

You don’t do a lot of TV, but the shows you do, like Black Books and Never Mind The Buzzcocks, are always high quality. Do you turn a lot of offers down?
I get offered a lot of stuff and I turn down a lot of stuff, because I look at it and it might be okay but it if it’s not something I really want to do, then I won’t. I’d rather apply my energies to improving my stand-up show or to touring. Occasionally, something will really grab me — this documentary about Alfred Wallace, the Victorian naturalist explorer, for instance, because I’ve been passionate about the subject for years, and I was lucky enough to be able to make it for the BBC. I’ve got panel shows coming out my ears, though. Every day, someone will ask if I want to be on this or this, and I always say no, no, no, no, no. I pare it right back to the things I want to do.

Buzzcocks was really the ultimate panel show. I’ve always wondered, was there a lot of stuff we never saw because it was just too filthy or libellous to air?
Yes, definitely. There were some extraordinarily scatological exchanges. I think the essence of the show was always captured. If ever there was something we just couldn’t broadcast, the thread of that discussion usually made it to air and it would always make sense. When Mark Lamarr was hosting the show, he came across as the very sarcastic, sharp-tongued one, who was mean to all the guests. The thing is that a lot of the time, outside of that, he’d be clowning around and making fun of himself. I’ve known him for donkey’s years, but I always felt that, because of the constraints of the edit, there was never really room for Buzzcocks to show the real him, which is a real shame. I wish people had seen more of the playful side of him. You also have to consider the fact that there are six guests and a host and they all need a fair chunk of time to be represented in a half-hour show, so the editors needed to keep that in mind. Sometimes the guests wouldn’t say anything.

Yeah, it seems like a lot of episodes had that one panellist who just sat there in stunned silence…
I think we traumatised a few people! You have to give them some screen time though or people wonder, “What happened to them? I’m sure they were there at the beginning.” It was very fun and anarchic. Recordings could last for two and a half hours. At times, there’d be a great, big improvised section where we’d all get up out of our seats and go into the audience. People would walk off and come back on, try to be rock stars and say “I need a drink!”, they’d disappear off to the toilet for 15 minutes… It was chaotic, but yeah, it was fun.

So what’s next for you?
Right now, I’m preparing a talk about Alfred Wallace, who I made that documentary about earlier this year. This is the 100th anniversary of his death and there are various events happening around the country, and so I’m taking part in one on Saturday with various great, entertaining writers and scientists, people like Richard Dawkins. It’s weird doing a science gig rather than a comedy gig, but I quite like it.

That’s incredible. It seems like you have the kind of mind that’s always skipping from subject to subject, looking for something new…
Yes, and it’s kind of annoying, because the problem is you can’t switch it off. I’ll be analysing one thing and thinking about it and then something else will catch my attention, and I’ll think “Oh, that’s quite interesting.” Suddenly, I’ll find that I’m reading seven or eight books, trying to work my way through a subject. I always say that life’s too short, so you should try and fill your head with as much knowledge as you can in the time that you’ve got.

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Qualmpeddler is out now on DVD through Universal Sony Pictures.

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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer.