I'd love to take the TARDIS for a ride


The Old Bailey


King of comedy Bill Bailey appeared to be undergoing something of a mid-life crisis when he brought his live show to York this winter. He spoke to Mark Butler about middle-age angst, his journey from stand-up villain to comic hero, and how he'd love to be the next Doctor Who.


O


f all the many adjectives you could choose to describe hugely popular comedian Bill Bailey, 'serious' probably wouldn't be one of them. After all, Bailey is the king of whimsy - blessed with a meandering,


joyfully surreal mind that conjures up bizarre scenarios and hilarious musical parodies in equal measure - and you never get the impression that the unconventional stand-up cares what people think of him. This is the man who, lest we forget, named one of his own tours 'Part Troll'. However, when beyond catches up with Bailey during his most recent tour,


there appears to be something rather unexpected going on. Not only does the comic confess to “ranting about politics, the cult of celebrity and the state of the nation”, it also appears he's got one eye firmly on the state of his waistline too. "I've started going to the gym,” he admits. “I'm 46 now, and if I want to kick a ball


around in the park as I'd like to, I've got to get fit. It's one of those necessary evils. I can't just go running down the street, because everyone would be going 'alright Bill' every few seconds so I'd never get anywhere. And it would look a bit weird if I turned up at my son's games lesson. “We didn't have to worry about this when we were being chased by wild animals,


did we?" Blimey. Bill Bailey just might be in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Of course, in


Bailey's case it's a wistful, irreverent and amusing take on middle-age angst – but he reveals that the only reason he started getting more angry and satirical with his new show Dandelion Mind was because he put his back out. "I was prescribed painkillers, but they floored me to the point where I couldn't


form a sentence,” he explains. “I tried doing a show on them and it was like a complete fog, like speaking through a bucket, so I did my next gig without them. I was in so much pain, and so angry, that I just started ranting about a whole range of subjects.


"The show is loosely based around the theme of 'doubt'. All the institutions we used to think we could depend on - like the banks - have lost our confidence. The shape of the world is changing and the system itself is in doubt. "It's been a good response. Audiences like to be challenged. But I'm still making people laugh - and that's the whole point. There's straightforward stand-up, observational stuff and stories, and lots of music too. My audiences can range from 10-year-old kids to 80-year-old grandmothers, so I try to entertain as broadly as possible.”


And entertain Bailey does, with a live routine that has become renowned for its fusion of his genuinely impressive musical ability with his knack for laugh-out-loud absurdity, whether mustering a Kraftwerk take on the Hokey Kokey or remixing the BBC News theme tune.


The


shape of the world is changing


Perhaps the air of delightful, bemused


weirdness that punctuates his shows is inevitable given his bizarre early forays into showbusiness. He was once in a band called The Famous Five – which only had four members – while in the early '80s he appeared on TV with a 'mind-reading' dog, toured the UK with a Welsh Experimental-Theatre troupe (playing a “disenfranchised owl”) and also had stints as a lounge and jazz pianist, before eventually deciding to fuse his love of music, performance and comedy to make the leap into stand-up. "I started out doing musical comedy


at a time when it was villified,” he says. “I remember critics writing things like 'you know it's time to go home when the comedian takes out a guitar'.” Of course, that's all changed now, with


Bailey and fellow musical comedians such as Tim Minchin packing out huge venues and winning rave reviews. “If I've played some small part in helping


resurrect musical comedy, then great,” muses Bailey. “I feel vindicated by that." He's broken through into TV in a big way too of course, appearing in the likes of Spaced and Black Books and captaining a team on Never Mind The Buzzcocks for six years. And when Bailey got to guest-star in Doctor


Who recently, it's fair to say the sci-fi obsessive - who's been known to lapse into Klingon during interviews - was like a kid in a sweet shop.


"It was a brilliant experience,” he recalls. “A


dream come true. I only regret that I didn't get to go in the TARDIS. I'll be demanding that I get to take it for a ride at some point. "I know all the Doctors in order, I love the


music, and I grew up with the show. It was part of my childhood.” He was also once strongly-linked to the


part of Doctor Who himself, with many fans clamouring for him to get the job. Surely the comic would love nothing more than the chance to tackle one of sci-fi's greatest ever roles?


"It would be amazing,” he chuckles. “The ultimate in geekery. To have a sonic screwdriver to call my own? Talk about a dream gig.”


Bill Bailey's Dandelion Mind is out on DVD now.


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