Bill Bailey is annoyed with the decisions taken by the Labour government since it took power (Image: Gillian Robertson/Glassbox Productions Ltd)
Bill Bailey has always been a political animal but, he emphasises, largely with a small “p”. The lifelong Labour supporter, who was delighted by July’s landslide for Sir , has preferred to let his work, of which more shortly, do the talking.
Today, however, asked how he thinks it’s going for Sir Keir’s new administration, he isn’t entirely circumspect. “Well, it’s a bit disappointing, isn’t it?” he sighs. “I only hope this is a temporary blip. Then again, a lot of things that happened in the first three months were entirely avoidable.”
Bailey pauses, then continues: “If I was being generous, I’d say 14 years in opposition is a long time. Yes, you have the opportunity to plan what you’d do if you came to power. But being in government is totally different. As said, ‘It comes at you fast’. Stuff happens all the time, much of it beyond your control. Starmer dealt with the riots very well. But is it honestly a good idea to remove the from pensioners?”
Ah, so this is what has got his goat – and that of millions of other Britons from across the political spectrum. Indeed, depriving some of society’s most vulnerable people of the benefit as temperatures fall has sparked almost universal outrage. A Daily Express campaign to reverse the cut has received tens of thousands of responses.
“It raises not much more than a billion pounds,” Bailey muses. “Couldn’t Rachel Reeves have found that from somewhere else? The very rich perhaps? And, if you’re going to pick on the pensioners, why not wrap it up in the Budget when you might be giving them something else at the same time? What’s more, why have a debate on so emotive a subject on the very day 1,700 criminals are being released early from their prison sentences?”
This is a very different Bailey from the twinkle-toed actor, comedian and musician who has delighted audiences for decades with his offbeat brand of humour.
Pensioners protest the winter fuel payment cut outside Westminster (Image: Getty Images)
But he’s not finished yet. Moving onto the question of political freebies (the issues of clothes, borrowed flats and football tickets have all dogged the new government), he continues: “It’s right all these gifts should be made public. But how much cleverer just to say that no Labour MP should accept anything – from suits to spectacles to concert tickets? Put simply: taking something for nothing is never going to be a good look.”
Still, we should be thankful for small mercies, he believes.
“Starmer’s not Boris. And the least said about Liz Truss… She was in power when I was touring Australia,” he smiles. “I was fond of saying, ‘I don’t know but she may not be prime minister by the end of this evening.’ Then, on one occasion, of course, that’s exactly what happened.
“And yet, still she walks around trailing this air of entitlement.”
Phew. This is Bill Bailey uncensored. But after that entertaining foray into politics with a capital “P” – we were talking pre-Budget and the latest row over inheritance tax changes for farmers, thankfully – we’re back on safer ground and the topic of how a genuine entertainment polymath like Bailey should describe himself on his passport
“I toyed with the idea of ‘Troubadour’,” he says, semi-seriously but with that twinkle in his eye. “But, in the end, I felt it might confuse passport control officers around the world. So, I plumped for ‘Comedian’ because that’s generally what I do.”
But not exclusively. Yes, he has a large following for his stand-up shows but he’s also a more than proficient musician on a number of instruments as well as an actor, a regular on panel shows from Have I Got News For You to QI, a documentary filmmaker, an award-winning dancer and a bestselling author. We are meeting in his courtyard office next to the family home in west London where he lives with his wife of 26 years, Kristin, and their 20-year-old son, Dax (“It’s a medieval French name, a diminutive of Jack”), who is currently teaching scuba-diving.
Bailey’s new book, of which we are here to discuss, is unambiguously titled My Animals and Other Animals, and charts his extraordinary adventures with everything from baboons to badgers, terriers and tortoises, and adders through to eagles and owls. Delightfully light and witty, it’s one of those nailed-on gifts certain to pop up in stockings the length and breadth of the land come Christmas.
One of life’s enthusiasts, he’ll be 60 in January (“not much I can do about that”) yet the notion of slowing down is anathema to him. “Why would I want to retire? I love the mix of what I do,” he says.
It certainly seems to suit him. He’s looking particularly dashing at the moment having made a spontaneous decision at the end of a 250-mile walk along Cape Wrath in the Scottish Highlands. After 30 years or so of his trademark plugged-into-the-mains shock of white hair, he had it all chopped off and now looks very dapper indeed with a close-cut crop – although he’s still sporting the pointy beard.
“I didn’t tell Kris what I was planning to do so I think it was quite a surprise, to say the least, when I got home. The man in the newsagent says it makes me look younger, which I was pleased about.”
He was born an only child to a former GP father, Christopher, who is still very much alive at 92, and a mother, Madryn who worked as a ward sister. An academic child, Bailey did well at his books at school and might have pursued a more conventional career had his head not been turned by becoming a member of a band, Behind Closed Doors, in his mid-teens.
“I think my parents were concerned because the notion of a more conventional career suddenly seemed to have been overtaken by a much more precarious future,” he explains.
“I remember them coming to the first recording of one of my stand-up shows – I’d have been in my late 20s by then – and I think the word I’d use to describe their initial reaction would be ‘mystified’.”
Bill Bailey and Oti Mabuse won Strictly Come Dancing in 2020 (Image: BBC/Keiron McCarron)
Comedy was fast becoming the new rock ‘n’ roll and Bailey was going from strength to strength. For a couple of years, he was part of a double act, Rubber Bishops. Then, striking out on his own – “I’m a bit of a gambler; I thought I’d give it a shot” – he deliberately put together an act that embraced his two great loves: comedy and music. “From the age of five, my mother had encouraged me to play the piano.”
And yet, he still wasn’t sure that this would be his life. Indeed, it wasn’t until he appeared at Glastonbury in 2007 that he realised he’d reached a sort of crossroads, as he explains. “It was as though I took a long, hard look at myself and acknowledged that not only was this my life but it was going to continue to be this eclectic mix of performing in various guises.”
Then he started being booked for popular TV panel shows. A regular on 8 Out of 10 Cats, he found himself working again with team captain Sean Lock: “I worked with him a lot; he was one of my dearest friends for more than 30 years.” Sadly, Sean succumbed to lung cancer in August 2021 aged just 58.
“I miss him greatly,” admits Bailey. “We used to go on long walks together. He had a wonderful way of being able to talk about anything and everything, from philosophy to daft stuff designed to make me laugh.
“He was a brilliant companion and a great loss. He was my confidant, the person I’d phone at 3am if I was having some sort of crisis. Was I funny anymore, I’d ask? Somehow, he’d always reassure me.”
And so to the dancing years. He’d been asked to take part in the ’s on a number of occasions but he couldn’t clear his diary for a sufficient slab of time. “The last few months of the year are traditionally prime touring time,” he explains.
Bill Bailey’s new book is called My Animals and Other Animals (Image: Gillian Robertson/Glassbox Productions Ltd)
The pandemic lockdown in 2020 changed all that.
“Apart from being available, I was intrigued by the challenge and, I can’t deny it, the opportunity, almost a compulsion, to perform for a large TV audience. And then I had the great good fortune of being gifted Oti Mabuse as my professional partner. She’s magnificent.”
He was reasonably fit, he says.
“I do a lot of walking and cycling but it’s undoubtedly a test of your physical stamina. Oti spotted my work ethic, though, and came up with more and more inventive routines.”
Inevitably, he was often left with sore feet but, back home, he’d dangle them in the garden pond and his loyal koi carp would nibble away his aches and pains.
Could he ever have dreamed that he and Oti would ultimately be lifting the prized Glitterball? “Not in a million years.”
So, a life-changing experience, professionally speaking. “Yes because, although I was established, this brought me to a wider audience of all ages.
“It was like a high-wire act every Saturday night. Being able to conquer that brought with it an enormous sense of achievement. I fear nothing now: sky-diving, paddle-boarding, scuba-diving, you name it.”
Promoting his new book apart, he’s full of plans. There’s a stand-up tour of Australia with a new show titled Thoughtifier, full of his particular brand of observational humour about our life and times, to slot in before Christmas.
He’ll then bring it to London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket throughout January into February.
As for politics, his prediction for the coming months?
“I think the jury’s still out. Let’s see how it pans out. The nature of our world is that people want results more and more quickly.”
So, his advice to Sir Keir? “Put all these gaffes behind you and start implementing the policies that got you elected in the first place.”
• My Animals, and Other Animals by Bill Bailey (Quercus, £25) is out now. Visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25