the Nuts interview: Bill Bailey
“I can drink, oh yeah. I can drink with the best of them”
Occasionally, Bill Bailey emerges from his clearing and heads for the big city. His most recent outing saw him perform his Part Troll live show in front of 80,000 people, record a new series of Never Mind The Buzzcocks and audition for the role of Gimli the Dwarf in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Unfortunately, despite his obvious talent, beard, tangle of hair and West Country accent, Bill failed to land the part. So we took pity on him and invited him over to have a go at being Gandalf for the afternoon.
You didn’t get the role of Gimli in Lord of the Rings, but have you thought about putting yourself forward for the new King Kong instead?
I could be a double, certainly. The thing about the original King Kong was that the islanders were living in fear of a massive monkey, so what they did was build an enclave with a huge door. Why didn’t they build a little door? Or a hatch. It wouldn’t have been able to get through. They’re idiots. I hope Peter Jackson doesn’t fall into the same big door trap.
Would you like to do any more acting?
I’m going up for the part of the robot in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Which’ll be quite fun.
Perhaps you could do some commercials. We thought pasties…
I haven’t yet done that sort of thing. I kind of have a rule that I’ve lived by for many years and that’s that I’d never do advertising. Unless I was asked. And I never have, so that moral dilemma has never really reared up. I’d do it if it was something really close to my heart like Theremins. Or cheese. A really nice strong cheese. A really tasty cheese.
Are you talking grade four or grade five cheese?
I’m talking off the scale. Ungraded. Cheese made from goats who are bitter, really pissed off goats. Ones who were drenched with resentment. Good God, imagine the cheese they’d produce. You could use it as Nitromors: “Cheese can also be used to be strip paint.”
You collect rock autobiographies, what’s your favourite tale of rock excess?
There was Gary Numan who on his first tour, spent £50,000 on cladding for his set, which is extraordinary. Now that’s mental. But the more traditional tale I like was when Led Zeppelin were travelling in America. They were at some party talking about drugs and someone mentioned that there was this island in the Dominican Republic where these plums grew and at certain times of the year they took on highly hallucinogenic properties. And so, they got their tour manager to fly them there to try these plums.
And the plums were out of season?
No they worked a treat. Their dedication to intoxication has to be applauded.
They flew in this completely kitted out rock plane to an island, then got
onto another plane, then another sea plane, then into a boat and rowed to
this tiny island, eat all these electric plums, then travel back to the gig…
Being a West Country man, does that mean you’re a fan of cider?
I remember going to a pub in South Stoke outside Bath, they do their own cider there. Well actually, they have the decency not to call it cider, they just call it rough and you ask for a ‘pinerruff’. And they’re absolutely right – it’s textural. There are bits floating in it. It’s opaque, it’s like someone dipped a glass into a six week old rainwater butt. It’s quite toothsome though. Especially with a dash of blackcurrant. Or even better, when I came up to London I went to a pub that served a drink that was Special Brew, Strongbow, a vodka and a dash of blackcurrant. A pint of nasties.
Sounds magic
It’s like an evening in one glass. An entire night’s experiences: expectation, intoxication, disorientation, an altercation with the law…
Apparently there are no plans for a fourth series of Black Books,
could you see it working as a stage show?
I think so, yeah. That might be fun actually – doing the sitcom as a
live stage version. That might be the way to go with it. It would be a shame
to do another series and it not be as good. I think that’s what Dillon
Moran’s view is; we’ve done three now and we don’t want to
start going back over old ground. It takes such a long time to write, too.
I’m sure Channel 4 want more of the series, but we won’t be doing
it for now.
Who drinks more, you or Dylan?
Well, we’re very similar. We match each other pint for pint, but Dylan also smokes four cigarettes for every pint consumed. When we were filming we used to use blackcurrant juice when we were supposed to be drinking red wine. Trouble was, we’d get so wired on juice by the end of the day, we had to go back to red wine in the end. But oh I can drink, oh yeah. I can drink with the best of them. I won’t drink absinthe, I draw the line at that. But I will drink rough cider, mescal and some weird drink I bought off a bloke in Indonesia in a plastic bag.
Are you sure it was a drink?
It was clear, sterile and I have to say it was delicious. When I opened the bag up and poured it into a can of sprite, the evening went swimmingly. He was an enterprising young man.
Your Black Books co-star, Tamsin Grieg (Fran), has a part in the Archers. Could you see yourself appearing in the everyday tale of farming folk?
I’d properly get cast as ‘confused local’ or maybe an out of towner – a drug dealer of some sort. Then again perhaps a wizard or a flash snake oil salesman or something. An alien. Or a dowser. Yes, a dowser.
You don’t see many of them nowadays
Well there are a lot of fake dowsers. They’re just blokes with sticks. Liars with sticks.
Really?
Oh yeah, they turn up with cricket bats or something and say ‘yeah I can dowse’ when they can’t. Charlatans. You’ve got to watch them.
You’re famous for your ‘three men walk into a pub’ gags, what’s your favourite?
The one I do at the moment I really like; it’s about when two blokes go in. They sort of have to wait around for the third bloke to turn up before they can start the joke. A transvestite comes over and says ‘I’ll help’. They say ‘but you’re a woman’ and he says ‘Well, no, I’m dressed as a woman but I’m actually a bloke, so technically it will work’. Eventually it degenerates into the thing that they wanted to avoid and becomes a Gibbs’ Paradox…
Eh?
I dunno.
Have you got any weirdo fans?
Fans are a bit weird anyway. The mere mention of the word fan means you’re weird. They’re all fans of certain other things as well and that in itself is quite weird also. Not that they collect people’s toenail clippings or anything – there’s a healthy cross section of cyber-goths, metal heads, punks, cyber geeks and so on. It’s a good mix.
And what are you a fan of?
Films. Visual effects-driven films, really surreal black comedies like Man Bites Dog and Finnish dark comedies. And straight form comedy, knockabout stuff like Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers.
In your video diary [Part Troll] you’re a fan of hotel tea and coffee making facilities. What should be on offer?
Complimentary biscuits, that’s what you need. Any hotel owners out there, it is ESSENTIAL to include complimentary biscuits. I find chocolate bourbons best. I got a lychee on a bed of four raspberries once. That was wrong.
Fellow comics Jack Dee and Rhona Cameron were in reality shows, would you ever do one?
Er, no. What I think they should do is tell people that they’re going to appear in a show, send them off to the jungle and just leave them there. That would be a much better idea.
END
View as PDF (1Mb)
