Bill Bailey tells Emma Pinch about his debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for his new show
BEFORE the attachment to trolls and panel shows, for Bill Bailey, there was music. And his passion was ignited by an unusual muse.
Bill, 45, remembers the moment clearly. It was the early 70s and he was sitting in his living room with his mum and dad watching TV.
“It was watching Les Dawson as a kid,” he says. “I was listening to him play wrong deliberately and I thought, how does he do that? I couldn't. It took skill. You have to know what you’re doing to know how to do it to do it badly. That stored away in my subconscious.”
Music has long formed part of his stand up show. But he’s decided to turn his attentions more fully to music with his show Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra.
He’ll perform with the full RLPO. He describes his show in terms of structure “like a Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra but not quite so stiff and staid.”
“I introduce the various instruments of the orchestra and give a bit of info about them in a slightly irreverent comedy way,” he explains.
“I’ll introduce the oboe for example and we’ll here some of that, then all the different sections.
“It’s like deconstructing the orchestra and allowing people to see how it fits together.
“It was the right kind of approach for me, because I like to explain things and do the comedy version of it,” he says.
“It’ll be ‘this is how you will know it; I think of it like this’.
He knows most people will be coming to see Bill Bailey comedy genius, rather than Bill Bailey musician. They might be taken aback by the lack of reference to hobbits – “Lord of the Rings is my bible”, weasels, Klingons and trolls.
He’s keen to make it an educational experience.
But the educational element will be doused liberally with laughs.
“It’s a comedy show, that’s the thing
“It’s in the guise of lots of music but we twist it and change it and put lots of musical jokes in it. The education element is you might come away thinking ‘I didn’t know that.
