Bill Bailey

Mark Robert "Bill" Bailey (born 13 January 1965) is an English musician, comedian, actor and television presenter. He is known for his role as Manny in the sitcom Black Books (2000–2004), and for his regular appearances on the panel shows Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI, as well as for his stand-up comedy work. He plays a variety of musical instruments and incorporates music into his performances.

Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in 2003. In 2007, and again in 2010, he was voted the seventh greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. He made an appearance in the film Hot Fuzz. In 2020, he won the 18th series of the televised BBC dancing competition Strictly Come Dancing with his professional partner Oti Mabuse. Then aged 55, he is the oldest winner in the show's history as of 2024. He is a cancer fundraiser and has walked 100 miles for cancer fundraising in honour of his mother, who died in 2005, as well as raising awareness for prostate cancer through television, print, and digital ads. Bailey was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bath on 11 July 2018. In 2024, he became a patron of the Musical Comedy Awards. He has written works including Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to British Birds, Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness, and My Animals, and Other Animals, a memoir of sorts. He has established his own webpage and offers a shop, including a list of his musical accomplishments since 1995.

Early life

Mark Robert Bailey was born on 13 January 1965 in Keynsham, Somerset, son of Christopher and Madryn Bailey. His father was an NHS general practitioner "who ran a little surgery in the front of the house", and his mother a hospital ward nurse. Until 2018, when he revealed the correct date, his birthday was wrongly recorded by the media as 24 February. He spent most of his childhood in Keynsham, a town between Bath and Bristol. His maternal grandparents lived in an annexe built on the side of the house by his maternal grandfather, who was a stonemason and builder. Two rooms at the front of the family house were for his father's surgery.

Bailey was educated at King Edward's School, an independent school in Bath, where he was a highly intelligent, academic pupil. At about the age of 15, he joined the school band called Behind Closed Doors, which played mostly original work. He is a classically trained musician, and was the only pupil at his school to study A-level music, which he passed with an A grade. He also states he was good at sport and was the captain of the KES 2nd XI cricket team in 1982, and would often combine music and sport by leading the singing on the long coach trip back from away rugby fixtures. It was here that he was given the nickname Bill by his music teacher for being able to play the song "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey" so well on the guitar.

Bailey started studies for an English degree at Westfield College of the University of London, but left after a year. He received an Associate Diploma from the London College of Music. He was also made an honorary member of the Society of Crematorium Organists. He performed with a boy band called The Famous Five. Acting roles included a part in a Workers' Revolutionary Party stage production called The Printers with Vanessa Redgrave and Frances de la Tour.

Career

Early stand-up

Bailey began touring the country with comedians such as Mark Lamarr. In 1984, he formed a double act, the Rubber Bishops, with Toby Longworth, It was there that Bailey began developing his own style, mixing in musical parodies with deconstructions of or variations on traditional jokes. Longworth moved on in 1989, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), and was replaced by Martin Stubbs.

Stubbs later quit, and in 1994 Bailey performed Rock at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Sean Lock, a show about an ageing rockstar and his roadie, script-edited by comedy writer Jim Miller. It was later serialised for the Mark Radcliffe show on BBC Radio 1. The show's attendances were not impressive and on one occasion the only person in the audience was comedian Dominic Holland. Bailey almost gave up comedy to take up a telesales job.

He went solo the next year with the one-man show Bill Bailey's Cosmic Jam. Bailey combined his post-modern jokes with music in his whimsical rambling style at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, which was broadcast in 1997 on Channel 4 as a one-hour special called Bill Bailey Live.

After supporting Donna McPhail in 1995 and winning a Time Out award, he returned to Edinburgh in 1996 with a show that was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award.

Bailey won Best Live Stand-Up award at the British Comedy Awards in 1999.

Television

In 1998, and wrote and presented the BBC television show, Is It Bill Bailey?. Bailey's television debut had been on the children's show Motormouth in the late 1980s – playing piano for a mind-reading dog. Bailey reminisced about the experience on the BBC show Room 101 with Paul Merton in 2000. In 1991, he was appearing in stand-up shows such as The Happening, Packing Them In, The Stand Up Show and The Comedy Store. He also appeared as captain on two panel games, an ITV music quiz pilot called Pop Dogs, and the Channel 4 science fiction quiz show Space Cadets.

Over the next few years, Bailey made guest appearances on shows such as Have I Got News for You, World Cup Comedy, Room 101, Des O'Connor Tonight, Coast to Coast and three episodes of off-beat Channel 4 sitcom Spaced, in which he played comic-shop manager Bilbo Bagshot. In 1998, Dylan Moran approached him with the pilot script for Black Books, a Channel 4 sitcom about a cold-hearted bookshop owner, his nice-guy assistant, and their socially awkward female friend. It was commissioned in 2000, and Bailey took the part of the assistant Manny Bianco, with Moran playing the owner Bernard and Tamsin Greig the friend, Fran. Three series of six episodes each were made.

When Sean Hughes left his long-term role as a team captain on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in 2002, Bailey became his successor. Host Mark Lamarr continually teased him about his looks and his pre-occupation with woodland animals. On 18 September 2008, it was announced that Bailey would leave the series and be replaced by a series of guest captains including Jack Dee and Dermot O'Leary. While touring in 2009, Bailey joked that the main reason for leaving the show was a lack of desire to continue humming Britney Spears' Toxic to little known figures in the indie music scene. During this time he also left his position as "curator" of the Museum of Curiosity, and declared his intention to "retire" from panel games, although he has since appeared on QI many more times and hosted Have I Got News For You.

Bailey has appeared frequently on the intellectual panel game QI since it began in 2003, alongside host Stephen Fry and regular panellist Alan Davies; he was the winner of the show's unaired pilot episode. Other television appearances include a cameo role in Alan Davies' drama series Jonathan Creek as failing street magician Kenny Starkiss and obsessed guitar teacher in the "Holiday" episode of Sean Lock's Fifteen Storeys High. He later appeared with Lock again as a guest on his show TV Heaven, Telly Hell. He appeared twice on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Bailey also hosted his own show Comic's Choice, which aired in 2011.

Bailey presented Wild Thing I Love You, which began on Channel 4 on 15 October 2006. The series concentrates on the protection of Britain's wild animals, and has included re-homing badgers, owls and water voles.

In 2008, he played Maxxie's dad, Walter Oliver in episode one of the second series of the E4 teenage "dramedy" Skins Bailey helped Kevin McCloud build his eco-friendly home in the first episode of Grand Designs Live on 4 May 2008,.

In 2009, Bailey appeared as Cyclops in the BBC show Hustle, In autumn 2009, Bailey presented Bill Bailey's Birdwatching Bonanza.

Continuing his foray into natural history, Bailey presented ITV1's half-hour wildlife mini-series Baboons With Bill Bailey. The series was filmed in Cape Town and spanned eight episodes, with exclusive content available on itvWILD.

Bill Bailey played Droxil, a Harvest Ranger from the Planet Androzani Major, in the 2011 Christmas Special of Doctor Who, titled The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

In 2009, Bailey presented a project about the explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, in the form of an Indonesian travelogue. Bailey said in an interview that Wallace had been "airbrushed out of history", and that he felt a "real affinity" with him. In 2013, to coincide with the centenary of Wallace's death, Bailey presented a two-part documentary, Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero, first broadcast on BBC Two on 21 and 28 April 2013. He travelled around producing and filming the series in Indonesia and Borneo.