The Bold Bailey

One of the highlights of this year s Red Hot Festival in the southern metropolis that is Cork City has to be the appearance of Bill Bailey, whose innovative exploration of the very structure of comedy borders on the post-modern. Bailey s sequence of man-walks-into-a-bar jokes brilliantly deconstructs the genre at the same time as it breathes new life into it.
I think that the audience is now very literate when it comes to comedy, says Bailey. They re able to see what s going on. It s fun for them and for me to take it apart; to say to them: you re watching me tell you a joke you know it, I know it, and here s the joke, let s take it apart.
Comedy has evolved in many ways from a simple straightforward approach as acts want to do more challenging stuff and audiences want to see greater variety. A lot of it has to do with the way character comedy has blossomed over the last ten years and also the growth of semi-improvised, surreal stuff. You want to be unpredictable; you don t want audiences to know what s going to happen.
In keeping with the spirit of innovation at the heart of his comedy, Bailey has been adding new devices to his act, using technology for the first time this year at the Edinburgh Festival, where he unveiled his new musical direction!
I ve got a film screen now, he says. It s like a silent movie-style section. I m interested in the musical aspect of it. You see these old films and they have either romantic or suspense music accompanying them. The music changes how you view the action. I m interested in how you can change the whole perception of what you see just by changing the music.
Having to synchronise your act with a stage manager s remote control sounds like a perilous art. Did it break down at all?
No. But I nearly did! I never realised what a tricky process it is. And then there was the headache of going through archives and sifting through material. So much stuff is inaccessible they won t let you licence it.
Bailey began his career as a serious stage actor, taking roles in plays by the likes of Racine, Moliere and Brecht. But in 1989 he helped found comedy troupe The Rubber Bishops. He first reached a widespread audience with a show he co-wrote with fellow English comedian Sean Locke, called Rock, which made its way to Glastonbury as well as BBC radio. His first one-man show, Bill Bailey s Cosmic Jam, was a highlight of the 1995 Edinburgh Festival and so, as both thespian and comedian, Bailey is in a unique position to judge the current state of both arts.
Because comedy is now so big, it attracts far more critical attention than before. I remember ten years ago, there were only one or two names to watch for on the Fringe most of the Fringe was just small venues and people trying out stuff.
In fact, it has been said that stand-up comedy is taking over from the Fringe theatre groups and putting them out of business because obviously one guy with a microphone doesn t have the overheads and expenses that a 20-person theatre group has. But it might also be because of the years and years and years of rotten fringe theatre; and people thinking, I don t want to pay 6 quid to sit through another rubbish adaptation of Ibsen. I d rather go and see some bloke tell a few jokes! .
But what s happening now is that the fringe theatre is in a way beginning to overshadow the comedy in Edinburgh. There s a terrific Fringe theatre now. They ve got their act together.
Bailey s surreal strain of comedy fits into a tradition that has as its godfathers Spike Milligan and the late Peter Cook, and which is kept alive by the likes of Simon Munnery s League Against Tedium.
Peter Cook was all about surreal, observational humour and complete innovation, enthuses Bailey. It was stuff people had never heard before it blew their minds to hear a man wittering on about bees and other utter nonsense. They were completely entranced by it. He was a man ahead of his time.
His absurd humour also had a real influence on Python. But if you want to take it back, you could go back to Ionesco s plays: these brilliant surreal, absurd monologues. But you need a real personality and presence to carry it off and Cook had that. So does Simon Munnery,. . . he s bonkers! laughs Bailey good naturedly.
Bailey s future plans include a tour of Hong Kong and the UK with his new show as well as a starring role alongside Dylan Moran in the sitcom, Black Books, which should be broadcast early next year. Moran is currently holed up in Edinburgh writing episodes with the omnipotent Graham Linehan.
Dylan has managed to capture that great stream-of-consciousness ranting style he s got, says Bailey. I play a sort of hippy, bohemian guy with a strange background who has always just managed to get by. The kind of guy who might have worked in the diplomatic service one minute and as a park-keeper the next. My character is an eternal optimist to whom terrible things keep happening; and Dylan s is the eternal pessimist. n
Bill Bailey plays the Half Moon Club in Cork on Saturday 18th September as part of the Murphy s Red Hot Festival.