Bill Bailey

Bill Bailey

Real name: Mark Bailey
Date of birth: 13-01-1964
Born and raised in the West Country, Bill Bailey showed an early passion for music, forming the school band Behind Closed Doors.  It was also at school that he acquired the nickname Bill, thanks to a geography teacher who was a fan of the song Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey?

He seemed destined for a career in music; being the only pupil at his school to study the subject at A-level, before attending the  London College of Music.  In his early years, he performed with an 'enthusiastic if unsuccessful', four-piece band called The Famous Five. But he says he always felt the urge to slip jokes into the set.

Bailey also had a passion for theatre, and he spent much of the Eighties touring with a Welsh experimental theatre company, which he combined with a job as a lounge pianist and a keyboard player in a jazz trio. But one night Bailey saw comic poet John Hegley, who inspired him to combine music and comedy.

In 1986 he formed a double act, the Rubber Bishops, with Toby Longworth, who was replaced in 1988 by Martin Stubbs.  Around this time he was also performing with  London topical comedy team Newsrevue.

Once the double act dissolved, he formed the pub band Beergut 100, and started performing stand-up solo.  In 1994, he performed  at the Edinburgh Fringe with Sean Lock with the show Rock, about an ageing rockstar and his roadie

The following he returned with his debut solo show, and in 1996 earned a Perrier nomination for his show Cosmic Jam. The show was later recorded for TV, but it took until 2005 for it to be released on DVD.

His Perrier success landed him several TV appearances, including a captaincy on the ill-fated Channel 4 sci-fi panel game Space Cadets. But three years after his Perrier success, Bailey was writing and starring in his own BBC Two show Is It Bill Baile?y, featuring  musical parodies, surreal sketches, and stand-up.

He continued to tour and  won the Best Live Stand-Up award at the 1999 British Comedy Awards. In 2001, he toured with Bewilderness and in 2003, he took to the road with Part Troll, following its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2007 he made the move to arenas, with the live show Tinselworm.

In 2000, he took the role as long-suffering Manny Bianco in Dylan Moran's sitcom Black Books, which cemented his burgeoning TV fame.

Now he is probably most famous as a team captain on comedy pop quiz Never Mind The Buzzcocks, taking over from Sean Hughes in 2002. Bailey has also appeared regularly on QI, Spaced, and as a guest on the likes of Room 101 and TV Heaven, Telly Hell.

Bailey has also been a straight actor. During the 2003 Edinburgh Festival he starred in a production of Twelve Angry Men, alongiside other comedians and two years later appeared opposite Alan Davies in an Edinburgh Fringe producton of The Odd Couple. He voiced the sperm whale in 2005's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie  In 2007, Bailey appreared in a West End revival of Harold Pinter sketches, Pinter's People, which he helped bring to the stage.

He is also a wildlife campagner and presented Wild Thing I Love You which began on Channel 4 on October 15, 2006.

He became a father in 2003, and named his son Dax after the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 character.

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Bill Bailey: The day Sean Lock and I played to one punter

...and it was another comedian

comedyBill Bailey has been recalling the rite of passage that every comedian seems to have to go through at least once: playing to an audience of just one person at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The comic recalled the moment he and the late Sean Lock, who was in the show with him, realised what was going on.

Speaking to Chris Moyles on his Radio X show today, Bailey said: ‘Me and Sean, we wrote this show called Rock, and it was about this old rocker who was trying to make a comeback, and I was the rocker and Sean was my faithful roadie.

‘So, what would happen is at the beginning of the show, Sean would go out there as the roadie character and he would gee the audience up a bit… And he would do this thing, "Right, oh I’ve got to do security. Come at me, come at me, just come at me, I can handle it, I can handle it!" And he would do all these kung fu moves,,,

‘Anyway, so he went out there in character, and I was backstage, and he was going, "come at me!" and then he said, "come at… Oh for goodness sake.’

‘And he went, "Just come out, Bill.’ And I was in character still… I was a West Country rocker, and I was going, "What do you mean, Big Sean?" That was his name, we didn’t think too much about names. "What do you mean, Big Sean?"

‘And he goes, "No, Bill. Honestly, come out, mate. There’s no one here."

‘I went, "Don’t be daft, don’t be daft, Big Sean." And he went, "No, no. It’s just me, Bill. There’s no one here."

‘So, I came out, and there literally was just one person in the audience, and it was the comedian Dominic Holland. Our mate.

‘He was just sitting there in the audience, and he said, "No just relax, lads. Just enjoy yourselves, do the show.’ And we went, "No. No, Dominic. We’re not doing it for you, this is weird.’"

In the end they decided to to take him to the bar talk him through the highlights…

• The Chris Moyles Show is on Radio X weekdays from 6:30am to 10am and on Global Player.

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Published: 27 Feb 2024

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