Bill Bailey's changed his tune!

Comic once said he 'loathed and detested' Last Night Of The Proms

comedy Bill Bailey might have appeared at the Last Night of the Proms yesterday – but he hasn’t always been such a fan of the flag-waving spectacle.

The comic was at the Royal Albert Hall last night to perform Leroy Anderson’s The Typewriter, known to comedy fans as the theme to the Radio 4’s The News Quiz, on the titular office equipment. And he also gave a brief recital on the venue’s 9,999-pipe organ before the rousing Auld Lang Syne.

But in a 2006 episode of the Room 101-style show TV Heaven, Telly Hell presented by his friend Sean Lock, Bailey spoke about how much he hated the annuall showcase.

‘I can’t bear the toff-ery, the smugness, the general "oooh we’re having a lovely time" middle-class affected level of privileged that seems to imbue everyone’s every pore,’ he told the Channel 4 show.

‘I loathe and detest everything it stands for.’

Later he added: ‘The thing I don't like about it is that kind of upper-middle class privilege to hijack the whole notion of classical music.

'It puts people off, yeah. They see that, they go, " Oh, no, it's not for me" and it might be.’

Yet before last night’s appearance he said: ‘There’s a really quite a unique atmosphere… it feels like this is more about what music should be.

‘I think it’s very inclusive, it’s got a feeling that it’s for everyone, people make almost like a pilgrimage to it, you see people sitting outside wanting to get in.

‘There’s a sense of celebration, of fun, of like this is a sort of British institution really, and it feels like quite an honour to be part of it.’

He also said he wished his mum was there to see him since she encouraged his love of classical music. Madryn did of bowel cancer in 2005.

Watch Bailey's performance on iPlayer from 37minues in, from the BBC broadcast hosted by Katie Derham, with guests Nick Mohammed and Gareth Malone.<

And here he is on TV Heaven, Telly Hell: