Bill Bailey - ‘Rejection Made Me A Better Performer’

Bill Bailey is a comedian, musician, writer, actor, director and presenter, known for his brilliant live tours and panel appearances on shows including Never Mind the Buzzcocks and QI. In this episode, Bill discusses being rejected from drama school, an Edinburgh Fringe show which flopped and the death of his best friend Sean Lock. Plus: the moment he decided to cut off his legendary hair (after it got stuck in some train doors). Now, Bill is back on the road with his new UK arena tour, Bill Bailey: Vaudevillian, culminating in a two-month residency at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket. IN THIS EPISODE 00:00 Introduction 03:05 Live Shows vs Screens 06:30 Love Letters and Marriage 10:24 Drama School Rejection 15:30 Music Teacher and Confidence 19:49 Haircut and Next Failure 22:51 Comeback Rocker Concept 23:20 Bill Best Backstory 24:28 Props Songs and Craft 25:16 Great Reviews No Crowd 25:46 One Person Audience Night 28:06 Friendship and Grief 34:22 Leaving Academia Behind 41:51 Animals Curiosity and Wallace 💬 QUOTES TO REMEMBER: Being on stage in front of an audience - there's nothing quite like it. There isn't really anything that replicates that experience. You have to cherish every moment. Cherish those friendships that you have. Cultivate them. Cultivate relationships with everyone that you feel a bond with, because you never know when they're not gonna be around. 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: Get tickets for Bill’s tour, Vaudevillean, here: www.billbailey.co.uk/live Join the How To Fail community: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: www.theelizabethday.substack.com 📚 WANT MORE? Stephen Merchant - swap.fm/l/Lta5mlFbVnPHyFb8R1n2 Miranda Hart - swap.fm/l/oTScN30b80GflJtO4rgu 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Elizabeth and Bill answer listener questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://lnk.to/7i0moR Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: askhowtofail.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  This month on How To Fail, we're all about celebrating wellness from the inside. If you'd like to hear more on this, go and listen to my episode with Bella Mackey.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I don't mind talking about it. I mind people's reactions imagining that they like know what's going on in my womb. Like what's going on in my womb is like, everything is packing up and leaving town, baby.

• 0:20Elizabeth Day?

  How To Fail is brought to you by Ala Lacto Free, delicious dairy with all the taste, easier to digest. Link in the episode description.

• 0:28Speaker 02

  But we didn't get an audience. That was the simple thing. We just didn't get an audience and we lost money. We lost a lot of money. And I realise that. There's a huge gap in my life. There's that relationship that's missing.

• 0:39Elizabeth Day?

  You keep a mini zoo of around 50 rescue animals, including an armadillo, a guinea pig, a rabbit, ducks, chickens, and previously a large Malay cockerel. Is that correct?

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:51Elizabeth Day?

  How To Fail is brought to you by Ala Lacto Free, delicious dairy with all the taste, easier to digest. Hello and welcome to How To Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. Most interviews concentrate on all of the success stories, but they leave out the part that actually shapes us, which is failure and how we cope with it. This is where How To Fail comes in. I really hope you enjoy this conversation and please do remember to like, follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single episode.

• 1:24Elizabeth Day?

  Confession time. I have a tendency to postpone certain decisions for far longer than is sensible. Not the big life decisions, oddly enough, those I can usually handle. It's the smaller ones that somehow become disproportionately complicated. For me, rugs fall squarely into that category. I've known for a long time that a rug can completely change how a room feels, but I've always found sizing for a space tricky. That's why Ernesta appealed to me. Ernesta makes designer quality rugs custom cut to the exact dimensions of your space. So instead of making do with something that's close enough, you're choosing something made specifically for your home.

• 2:04Elizabeth Day?

  I also love the fact that you can order five oversized 12 by 12 samples for just $10 before committing. And Ernesta's design team will help with sizing completely free of charge. Visit ernestacom and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 towards any rug of your choice. That's ernestacom. Bill Bailey is a comedian, musician, writer, actor, director, presenter, and according to his own website, a keen paddleboarder. The Times calls him the finest stand-up comedian this country has to offer, known for his live tours and his work on TV quiz shows Never Mind The Buzzcocks and QI.

• 2:48Elizabeth Day?

  He was raised by medical parents. His father was a GP, his mother a nurse, and lived in the same house as his grandparents for many years. An only child, his early experiences of intergenerational living led to a lively curiosity. He was often encouraged by his grandfather to share his opinions at the kitchen table. At school, Bailey excelled in both academia and music. But after leaving his English degree at the University of London after 36 hours, he took on an array of jobs ranging from crematorium organist to telesales marketer, before alighting on stand-up comedy as a way of fusing his interests.

• 3:32Elizabeth Day?

  He took his first solo show to Edinburgh in 1995. From there, he became a household name, known for his quizzical intelligence on stage. He even won Strictly Come Dancing in 2020. Now he returns with a new UK arena tour, Bill Bailey Vaudevillian, which kicks off in November, finishing with a two-month residency at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It's easier to watch something on your phone or on your tablet, Bailey says. But Vaudevillian is a tribute to an entertainment you cannot consume at home. Bill Bailey, welcome to How To Fail.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 4:13Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you for being here. We've already had a great chat prompted by your baseball cap, which has an embroidered picture of a marmot on it.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:21Elizabeth Day?

  And it's a delight to have a marmot-wearing comedian in the How To Fail studio. It's a first for us.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  It is a first. Good. I've always loved to be, you know, there, a trailblazer.

• 4:31Elizabeth Day?

  You exactly. You are a trailblazer. And I am so, I'm so in agreement with you about the ease of entertainment consumed on a screen at home.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:42Elizabeth Day?

  And by comparison, the thrill of seeing something live.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:46Elizabeth Day?

  Is that something that you think we grapple with increasingly as a culture?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Well, I think that it's true to say that we have increasingly changed our habits about how we consume culture. I mean, that has definitely changed, especially, you know, watching TV, watching comedy, film, anything really. We listen to music through headphones via phones or tablets. And that has in itself changed the way music's been produced. The method of consumption is actually now starting to affect how music is even made. I find that to be quite worrying. I find that alarming. It seems to be a barrier to innovation, creativity and originality.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Whereas live performance is, I think, the opposite of that. Live is where all of those things can happen. In fact, I don't consider it to be an entirely rounded show unless there's been some kind of audience involvement. I think that's an integral part of it.

• 5:53Elizabeth Day?

  You say rightly that it's changed the way that music is made.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:58Elizabeth Day?

  Has it changed the way that comedy is made? Do you feel the pressure to be on TikTok?

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Well, I know that a lot of comedians now build an audience via TikTok in a way that we, as a, you know, a person of my vintage, we could never have imagined. You know, the way we built audiences was up and down the motorway, you know, going to little gigs all around the country, learning how to do it. It's not to say that that is not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I think that what that does provide is another outlet for people to perform comedy. The one that we perhaps we didn't have, you know, ours was, you know, growing up doing comedy where the only really way to reach a bigger audience was TV.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  And TV slots were sort of few and far between. You couldn't really sort of, you know, couldn't just get on TV, you know, it was very difficult. So now you can record yourself doing some comedy, put it on your channel and thousands, perhaps millions, perhaps tens of millions of people will see it. And you can build an audience that way. So I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I think it's just a different way of reaching an audience.

• 7:12Elizabeth Day?

  You have so many different strings to your impressive bow. When you are on stage, what does that feel like?

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Well, it feels like this is my natural habitat, if I'm honest. I do lots of different things and, you know, increasingly over the years of, you know, diversified a bit. If a TV project comes along, I'll want to get involved in it. And so I've turned my hand to presenting things and doing travel documentaries and writing books. But being on stage in front of an audience is something, there's nothing quite like it. There isn't really anything that replicates that experience.

• 7:59Elizabeth Day?

  You have been married to your wife, Kristen, for coming on 30 years, I think.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  It is, yes.

• 8:05Elizabeth Day?

  Is it true that you courted her by writing her daily letters?

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Well, that is partly true, yes. I mean, I think that this story has become slightly elaborated, embellished, embroidered over the years, but we did certainly write to each other. Not every day, perhaps. I don't think that. I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but we certainly did communicate via letter. I met her by chance in a show in Edinburgh I was doing. And she came, she was at the show and she'd watched it and enjoyed it. I'd gone upstairs to get a drink. I was coming back down the stairs and she was coming up the stairs. We met on the stairs.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  And she said, I loved her show, I thought it was great. I went, oh, thanks. And we chatted. I ended up sort of joining her group of friends and we went off and had a night out. I got sort of separated from my group of friends and then she, I ended up kipping on the floor in their flat. And in the morning, she woke up and I was just crashed out on the sofa and she made me some tea, you know, some cheese on toast, which I thought was great.

• 9:17Elizabeth Day?

  Oh.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  And really great. I mean, I was so.

• 9:21Elizabeth Day?

  So nice.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  It was so nice. I was like, but also I thought, who makes cheese on toast for breakfast? But I'm not complaining. This is great. A legend, literally. So I sent her some flowers saying thanks. And so she wrote to me saying, thanks for the letter. And I wrote back and we just communicated like this for a year, back and forth. She would do little cartoons. She was a brilliant artist. She'd draw these little cartoons and write to me and I would write back and tell her about life. I was living on a houseboat at the time. In fact, recently, we went back to the very same bar where we met and we recreated our meeting on the stairs.

• 9:59Elizabeth Day?

  That's so romantic. This is a podcast all about failure and what we learn from it, but clearly your marriage is such a success.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:08Elizabeth Day?

  What advice, if any, would you give someone who is just setting out on this journey?

• 10:15Speaker 02

  I think that part of the, I'd say that the foundations of a good marriage are you need to get to know someone really well, you know, I think you need to, you know, take your time. I mean, it's always this kind of, I don't know, this is sort of a kind of Jane Austen

• 10:38Speaker 02

  novel. Yeah, it's one of my, my do, my do, yeah. I mean, it was, it was quite sweet in a way, but when I think about it now, it's quite unusual really to communicate like that. I mean, most relationships communicate via some, you know, phones, texts, you know, not letters, not physical letters that you have to write out longhand. I mean, that sort of doesn't, no, it's archaic. But you know what? Actually, um, I, I did some research about this when I was writing a book on happiness and cursive writing, which is obviously the, you know, the, the kind of formal term for writing with a pen.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  It activates a part of the brain connected to memory and recall. So that if you write things down, you're, you are activating the brain to remember it. So I just, I think those moments, I remember them very well. I can even remember some of the phrases that she wrote. I can remember what I wrote. But that's not to say that, you know, whirlwind romances don't work as well. I think we're just lucky.

• 11:43Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm. Cheese on toast and writing letters. Well, congratulations.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I recommend both of those two.

• 11:53Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialized treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable.

• 12:36Elizabeth Day?

  So you can live more of the life you want to live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. Let's get on to your failures. Your first failure is being rejected from drama school, Bristol Old Vic.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:57Elizabeth Day?

  So you've left school at this stage?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:01Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, talk us through this rejection.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Well, I thought that's what I was going to do. I thought, because I, I was always acting at school. I was always in the school play. I'd always have the lead, the sixth form, I think it was. I was, I was the lead in the the school play, which was the irresistible rise of Arturo Uy, which was quite a sort of ambitious thing to take on. And I was Uy. And for those of you that your listeners, subscribers will perhaps know that if you don't, it was a, it's an allegory of the rise of Nazism and Hitler. Seen through the eyes of the, seen through the, the actions of the Chicago gangsters and prohibition. And so I really went full method, you know, I went, I actually, I had quite a lot of hair then and I cut it in the

• 13:48Speaker 02

  side parting, dyed it black, you know, and I came home and my mum, she looked at me and I walked in. Cause I'd had sort of blonde hair. I went through lots of different colors. I had, I had blonde hair and I had the black hair side parting. And I, I walked in and she went, and then she said, oh my God, she goes, you look lovely.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  I said, mum, I'm supposed, I'm supposed to be Hitler. I don't care. You're very smart. And that's a mum, a mother's love for you.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  I don't care, even if you're Hitler, I love you. So I thought this was it. This was what I was going to do. And I was very confident, perhaps too confident, I think. And I thought, well, this is clearly what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to perform in some context. And I'll go along, do the addition, one, two, three, bing bang bong, and that's it. And of course, it's nothing like that. And I was, I was, you know, that sort of slight arrogance of youth where you just assume that you're going to be good enough to do something. And, and of course, there were lots of other people there who were very, very good as well and perhaps better placed at that point and better cut out for that, that intake.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  And I was so shocked, you know, it was kind of like a real what, you know, like a moment where I thought, I'm just clearly, this is, this is just a shoe in.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  And I, and I wrote to them actually, and I sort of said, and I actually, I was, is there, you know, have you any advice? You know, like, I mean, obviously this is something I love to do. I don't know, any pointers you might be able to give me where I, where it went wrong or what was, what did I do that wasn't really, and and it was a very sort of, kind of bland sort of non-answer really was like, well, we just take in a certain number of people and you just went right for it. And it was that. And so it never really gave me a definitive answer, like there's this thing is, you know, you, it's lacking, it's failing. And I guess that's what was the grit that actually

• 16:12Speaker 02

  drove me on to, to, to do more performing and get better at it.

• 16:18Elizabeth Day?

  I think there are possibly, generalizing hugely, but two reasons why this kind of early rejection feels so shocking. One is potentially that you conflate success with a kind of love. So you fear that by being rejected, you're unlovable. The other potentially is that you have had smooth sailing up to this point. You've been a high achiever. You, you've managed incredibly well through school. And then this is your first experience

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:51Elizabeth Day?

  of being told for whatever reason, we don't think you're good enough.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  No.

• 16:55Elizabeth Day?

  Which one applies to you or do they both apply to you?

• 16:58Speaker 02

  Oh, I think they, yes, I think they do. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that, that's, that's, that's a true sort of depiction of what my life at school was. I mean, I found academic work to be easy, you know, I mean, I'm not going to lie. I was good at it and I would, you know, there would be an end of year prize and I would win the prize and then, and I would win prizes for all the different subjects. And that's not to say, that's not, I'm not just, I'm not bragging about it. It's just, that's what happened. I wanted to prove something to myself or I wanted to make my parents proud or something. I don't know.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Or I just had a facility for it, for subjects. And so, you know, and also then I was in, I was captain of the cricket team. I was in the school play, but school is very much a, it's not real life. And when you come into contact with reality, it is a bit of a shock. And I think that's what happened.

• 17:57Elizabeth Day?

  You were a very gifted musician and still are as well though at school, weren't you? You were the only one at your school who did A level music.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  A level music, that's right. Yeah. And I was very fortunate inasmuch that I had a fantastic teacher. She was an amazing woman, Linda Phipps. And she was my music A level tutor and there was no one else doing it at school, just me. So I had this brilliant one on one. Um, tutor. She was a powerhouse, you know, she, she was, she'd crackle with energy and laughter and she would, she had a, a small baby and the, the baby would sit on her lap while she was playing the keyboard, the baby bouncing up and down, watching these hands, you know, rippling over the keys.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  And she encouraged me to do so much. She was a very pivotal figure in my time at school. And she um, said to me, you know, you, you, you, you should do a, a concert. And encouraged me to do a, a, a concert with this, this orchestra. As a pianist, so I did a solo play, I played a Mozart piano concerto with an orchestra. At a recital at the, at the museum, the Holborn Museum in, in Bath, at the end of Palti Street. It's a huge, quite a massive deal when I think about it now. I can't imagine the, the nerves I must have felt then and pulled it off. And I would never have done it without her encouragement.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  And she would say things like, you, you, you know, you're capable of this, you can do this. You are capable of more than you imagine you can do. And her voice always would, would come back to me for years and yet still does. You know, I remember the first time I played Wembley, I'm just about to step out, stay on to stage, Wembley Arena. Thirteen thousand people and I'm hearing Linda's voice saying, you know, you can do more than you thought. And I just thought, yeah, you know, this is, this is partly down to her. That voice of encouragement that you need, it's so important at that age.

• 20:08Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, the, the power of an extraordinary teacher.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:12Elizabeth Day?

  That's so important to talk about.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 20:15Elizabeth Day?

  Having been rejected from drama school, how did you then set about getting better at performing?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  I took a year off school and during that time, um, me and a friend from school, we set up a comedy club in Bath and called it the Cactus Club. Every month we hosted an evening of comedy and we had invited acts from local area to come along, perform, we would host it, they would come on and then we'd have amateurs have come on. We have an open mic night, we had the gong show, you know, like people get gonged off.

• 20:54Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, right.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  So it's like, you know, they come on, they do it for a bit and then the audience are going

• 21:01Speaker 02

  there we go, the next one, come on. It was great fun and learnt a lot in that time. And then did some stand up gigs, early, very, very early gigs uh, at, uh, in clubs in the west country. And got a sort of feel for it. And I remember one particular one where we persuaded the club owner to let us have a comedy night and, you know, so we put on some sketches and some stand up and it was a bit of a shambles, you know, as you can imagine. But there was one moment in it where I'd written a bit of stand up and it just somehow connected with the crowd and

• 21:41Speaker 02

  it was, it was only a few minutes, but it was electric. It was like gripping a live wire and

• 21:50Speaker 02

  you know, and then you let go and you think, what was that? What just happened? But you think, when do I, oh, that was extraordinary, intoxicating. How do I get that again?

• 22:04Speaker 02

  And then you try again and it doesn't work. And you think, oh, I need to figure out that, what that was. Because that was it. That was, that was the moment when I was, became absolutely hooked on it.

• 22:16Elizabeth Day?

  I'm glad that you mentioned your hair when you were playing Arturo.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:20Elizabeth Day?

  Because your hair, in many ways, for many years, defined you. Everyone always mentioned it, your longer hair.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:29Elizabeth Day?

  You've cut your hair.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Yes, I have.

• 22:31Elizabeth Day?

  Can I say you look fantastic?

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Oh, that's very kind.

• 22:33Elizabeth Day?

  You really look great. Why did you decide to cut your hair though?

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Well, it was a gradual sort of realisation that this was, the time was right. You know, there was the time when I, when I was on a crowded tube train and the doors closed on the back of my hair and I couldn't move my head. That was a little early warning sign.

• 22:51Elizabeth Day?

  That is scary.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  And I just, I was pressed against the door like this, you know, and I did the wait till we got to the next station. But it was quite recently, um, a couple of years ago and I was hiking in Scotland. We were walking the Cape Wrath Trail, which is quite a tough old uh, hike and we'd, we'd been walking, there was three weeks of walking and we've got a bit feral. You know, you sort of sleep, wild camp, sleeping boffins, you know, you're a little bit, sort of beard's a bit raggedy. My hair got very raggedy and, and I was cooking up something over a fire one night and a strand of hair

• 23:32Speaker 02

  got flew into fire and so, and the whole, the whole head nearly went up and I thought, no, that's the universe telling me, no, no, time to get your hair cut, you silly old fool.

• 23:46Elizabeth Day?

  Does it feel, did it feel good? Did it feel kind of liberated?

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was very liberating. As you say, it had been part of my image. I mean, every review mentioned every, you know, his hair, he's look, he looks like this, he's an old wizard, he's this, he's that, he's from Middle Earth on and on and on it went. And so, you know, I went to my local barber's at the end of the road and I just told him about it and this guy, he's um, he didn't really know, I mean, I, I think he had a vague notion of who I was, but he was from, you know, he's from the Lebanon, you know, he's not interested really. And he had the clippers going, and I said, this is a big moment for me because, you know, this hair has become sort of part of my image. It's kind of, I suppose you could say it's iconic, you know, I've, I've, I've, this has been my look for many, many years, since my twenties, when I said, I haven't really cut my hair since then.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  So today is quite a, it's a big moment for me. And he just went, yeah, whatever mate.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  And it was all off.

• 24:42Elizabeth Day?

  There are so many things I wish I'd known when I started this podcast and my production company, Daylight. Like, why am I spending hours trying to make a website look good? Why am I designing everything from scratch? And why am I spending all my time just doing admin? What I really needed was one place that could do all of this for me. Enter Shopify. Shopify has beautiful ready-made templates that make your website look polished without needing to become a graphic designer overnight. Its AI tools can help you get your site up and running quickly. And Shopify checkout makes it really easy for customers to actually go from, ooh, I like that, to, yes, I'll have one.

• 25:22Elizabeth Day?

  If Shopify had existed when I started out, I could have saved myself a lot of time, stress and some rogue design choices. If you're ready to hear the of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at Shopify.co.uk/fail.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Few seconds. Yeah, well, yeah, no, never mind.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  And I looked at this sort of pathetic amount of hair that was tangled around, it looked like a mouse had got caught and the clippers all like, yeah. You know what? I'm glad.

• 25:58Elizabeth Day?

  You didn't keep it?

• 25:59Speaker 02

  No.

• 25:59Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  No, that's just, that would be.

• 26:01Elizabeth Day?

  It really suits you.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 26:03Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Cheers.

• 26:04Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Just, just, just to prove it, there you go.

• 26:07Elizabeth Day?

  Your second failure is rock.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Rock.

• 26:11Elizabeth Day?

  It's a stage show that you wrote and performed with the late, great Sean Locke, who I know was a best friend of yours. And you took it to the Edinburgh Fringe in nineteen ninety-four. What happened?

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Well, we had this idea that I would be an old rocker who was trying to make a comeback. And Sean would play my roadie, the loyal roadie who's stuck with him through thick and thin. And uh, and he would facilitate this gig and this would be the big success, the big comeback gig. My character was a sort of west country rocker, Bill Best. But the, the, based on the idea of Pete Best, you know, the guy who was in the Beatles and then

• 26:47Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, the drama.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  And so kind of a bit of like one of rock and roll's failures sort of thing, you know. And so he, he'd done something terrible at Live Aid. We never actually said what it was, but it was some terrible thing that happened to the, one of the biggest TV audiences in history. And he, he, he said something, did something horrific.

• 27:10Elizabeth Day?

  Love that you never revealed it. That's so funny.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  We never revealed it. It was just always alluded to and he was then persona non grata. But Sean played, I mean, we didn't, we didn't, this is how much work we did on the names, he was Big Sean. He was playing the roadie. And again, he was a sort of slightly tragic figure because he hadn't kept up with modern tech, you know, so he couldn't actually get another job. Because, you know, he could only work with big with old Bill Best because, you know, all this new fangled tech was beyond him. So they were sort of bound together. They couldn't escape this relationship, which was this symbiotic relationship when they were sort of like, they couldn't break out of this, this sort of, you know, the past, really.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  But we were just playing it for laughs, you know, we, we, we, you know, we had a, we had a, we wrote a lot of songs for it. We had crazy props made. Because Bill Best was like, you know, he said, I'm a man of the people. I don't want to lose that, you know, I'm just, I even know I'm a rock star. I don't want to be like some flash rock star. And so he had made a stretch shopping trolley and we made this thing for him to go shopping with. And it was two trolleys cut in half and welded together with smoked glass down the side. And an aerial, I mean, it was a thing of great beauty. And, um, and so Sean would wheel him around in this trolley.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  I mean, and then we wrote songs for it. One of the songs that became one of the kind of staples of my set in the end, The Leg of Time. It was like a sort of prog rock anthem. It was one of the best, certainly the best reviewed shows that, that we've ever done. People loved it. Audiences that we showed it to absolutely loved it. Critics loved it. But we just, the marketing of it, the word, the name, at this time, we weren't that well known at all. And so trying to get someone to come and see a show, very difficult. In a crowded marketplace, which Edinburgh is, you know, with thousands of shows and we just didn't get an audience.

• 29:16Elizabeth Day?

  Is it true that you did it for one person in the audience?

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Well, it did. We were sort of, the, the show started with me off stage and Sean would go on stage and then talk to the audience. And this was a kind of warm up thing he would do and he would do chat and banter with the audience and, and do a health and safety, spoof health and safety check and, and then, and then I would come on. And, uh, and on that particular occasion, there was no one in the audience apart from one person. It was a friend of ours, who was a comedian called Dominic Holland. And Dominic was sitting in the audience and Sean went out there. And then gradually, as he became accustomed to the light in the room, I could hear him, he was going, yeah, so come at me, right?

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Health and safety, health and safety, right? And he was doing all this shtick and then, and then his voice dropped and he just went, ah, oh, no, no, no. And I just thought, what's, what's going on? I went, what's going on? Big Sean? Nah, Bill, he said, no, come on, come on, mate. I went, what, what do you mean? And he goes, nah, nah. He said, come out. And I'm still in character because I'm off stage. I went, what do you mean? Come out, come out now? And he goes, no, Bill, forget it. Just. So I came out and there was just one person. And, and, and he's, we spoke to him and we said, look, we're not doing it. And he said, no, just do it, do the show, lads. Have fun. And we were like, no, we're not doing it just for one person.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  We'll take you to the pub. We'll go to the pub. We'll, we'll talk you through the highlights of it. We're not going to do the whole bloody show. That'd be weird. But it, but we didn't get an audience. That was the simple thing. We just didn't get an audience and we lost money. We lost a lot of money. And we had to spend weeks, months, months earning back all the money.

• 31:04Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm. I think that's such an important failure to share. Because clearly it was very high quality. What you had created was actually objectively brilliant.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:17Elizabeth Day?

  And to realise that that is no guarantee of success is so helpful, I think. To a lot of people listening and watching this, they'll find that really helpful. That actually the response isn't always a validation of something's greatness.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 31:36Elizabeth Day?

  Can we talk a little bit about Sean and your friendship?

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:40Elizabeth Day?

  I want to preface this by saying, I'm so sorry for your loss. He died in 2021.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:46Elizabeth Day?

  I know that grief doesn't go, it just becomes really, doesn't it? And I, I just wonder how you're doing today with it.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Well, um, I think about him a lot. Um, obviously thinking about him a lot when I was thinking about this show. I have very fond memories of that show, very fond memories of, of performing with Sean in Edinburgh. What a laugh. We laughed and laughed until we were helpless.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Writing that show, performing it. Um, and we thought that this was, we thought this was the kind of, the way we were going to go. We were going to write more shows like this. And in fact, we did, we did, we wrote a lot together. And, but it wasn't just about the professional relationship about doing comedy together. We become, we were very close. And we would be almost like confidants. We'd talk about everything. We'd talk about anything and everything. If I was doing a gig and it didn't, hadn't gone well, I would find Sean. It wouldn't matter if it was three AM, he would be there on the phone. He would say, well, you know, we all have these gigs.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Don't worry about it. Calm down. We talked a lot outside of, um, performing. We, we became very good friends. We went on, we went away on trips together. We went on adventures together around the world. We went trekking in Colombia. We went walking holidays all over the world. Indonesia and Spain and all around Europe. And then we got older, we had families and, you know, our families, we'd go on holidays together. And Sean was very much, I saw him, I realise now that because I'm an only child. He was a couple of years older than me. I saw him in that role as an older brother, like a sibling, you know?

• 33:44Speaker 02

  And we perhaps had a very similar relationship, uh, to, to brothers in as much that, you know, I know that sometimes siblings can sort of, there's a bit of, you know, sometimes you fall out, sometimes you, you know, but you feel a bond and that's what we had. And it was, it was a huge loss, I've got to say. Um, because, you know, his, his friendship and his, but it was more than that. It was more of a kind of an understanding. It was a bond. And you, you sometimes get that with people and not everyone, not all your friends you have that with. And I, I honestly, um, I do miss him very much.

• 34:26Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm. I think friendship is one of those deeply important things that we don't talk about enough. But particularly losing a friend in that way, there's no easy term or label you can reach for to express really what it means, other than saying, other than comparing it to something else like being a brother.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 34:50Elizabeth Day?

  And I, I, I just want to acknowledge that because there are so few rituals for friendship. Both the presence of it and the loss of it. And it's a difficult thing.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is. And, uh, and like you say, it's, it's very important, you know, it's, dare I say, it's one of those things you, you sometimes take for granted, you know, until it's, it's not there. And I realise that. There's a huge gap in my life. There's a, there's a, there's that relationship that's missing. You know, now, you know, I had this relationship with my wife, which is fantastic. And, you know, we have this wonderful bond and understanding, the relationship with my son, a father. All of these are slightly different, but a relationship with a friend, a friendship is, is a separate thing, I think.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  I thought we would just carry on until we were old geezers. Sitting on a porch, remembering how we did this stupid show.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  But, yeah, it wasn't to be. And, um, uh, I think it's very important. What that taught me really was you have to cherish every moment. Cherish those friendships that you have, cultivate them. Cultivate relationships with everyone that you feel a bond with because you never know when they're, they're not going to be around.

• 36:13Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm. Would you ever bring rock back with other people in the roles?

• 36:19Speaker 02

  I, I have thought about it.

• 36:20Elizabeth Day?

  It sounds brilliant, Bill.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  It was, it was, well, look, it was, it was a, honestly, and I'm, you know, look, I'm not just saying it. Of course, I'm going to say this great show, but it was a great show.

• 36:32Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  It was funny, but it was also inherently slightly tragic, which is, I suppose, one of the, one of the things that adds depth and heft to comedy. And it had a kind of, um, there was points in it where, uh, genuinely audiences were sort of, we'd have to stop the show because they were laughing so much. People were hysterical. You know, there was a bit where, where they both take truth drugs. And, uh, and Bill's, his truths, you know, they're supposed to be like revealing these great truths about yourselves. And all he came out with was all these foods that he liked.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Really like peas. I've always liked peas. And he's going, is that it? Is that all you've got? We wrote some great songs. Um, uh, I would.

• 37:26Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  All right then, I'll do that.

• 37:28Elizabeth Day?

  Do it.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 37:28Elizabeth Day?

  I really think you should. Also, talking about loss. It's such an important way of keeping someone as part of your life.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:38Elizabeth Day?

  Uh, remembering and talking and performing.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 37:42Elizabeth Day?

  With Sean, kind of by your side still. I think it'd be a beautiful thing and I would like to watch it. So.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  All right then.

• 37:48Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  I'll do that.

• 37:52Elizabeth Day?

  Your final failure is that you didn't pursue an academic career.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:56Elizabeth Day?

  So I mentioned in the introduction that you left the University of London. I thought it was after a year, but then I listened to an interview with you and you said it was after 36 hours.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  I mean, I think I was being slightly mischievous there, but you know, I think I did actually stick it out for a year technically. But in my head, I'd left after a day or so. I just thought, this is not for me. It's, it's just isn't, you know, by that point, I'd already left home. I'd started a comedy club. I'd travelled on my own a lot. I'd bussed all through Europe. I'd seen a bit of life and I'd decided that comedy was what I wanted to do. And, and almost sort of started to kind of catch hold of my own destiny in a way.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  And this felt like letting that go again. This felt like going back to school. This felt like a backward step. And it didn't help with the fact that a couple of lectures were, seemed to me, this is stuff we did. We've covered this, you know, years ago, talking about iambic pentameter, come on. And it's again, down to the people, I think, down to your lecturers, down to individuals. I'd had such, I was so lucky that I'd met someone like Linda. You don't meet people like that very often. In fact, it's very rare. She was a rarity and there was no one like that. And I felt somehow that this was lacking. It wasn't giving me what I wanted it to be.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  And, and so I immediately started to pursue other interests. And I got involved in a French speaking theatre company and I got very heavily involved with them. And we took, we, we, we, we put on shows in French for students of French, A level students, university students, you know. We put on Racine Marseille.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  We performed these at the Shaw Theatre in London and it was great. And I thought, this is.

• 40:01Elizabeth Day?

  Did you learn French just on the job?

• 40:04Speaker 02

  No, I, I've always loved languages.

• 40:06Elizabeth Day?

  You've got an incredibly good accent.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  My, well, the accent, I mean, I spent some, I went on a, what do you call a?

• 40:13Elizabeth Day?

  Exchange.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  And I love French. Again, that was down to a French teacher we had very briefly, who was brilliant. And she was absolutely brilliant and also very young and very attractive.

• 40:26Elizabeth Day?

  Classic French.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Classic. But so suddenly all these boys in the class were paying attention and trying to impress her. But I just loved the language. Through that, then I ended up entering a competition. I went, it was at the Concorde Dramatique at the Institut Français in Kensington. And I performed this piece. It was a fantastic play again, which is, doesn't get put on that often. Les Bâtisseurs d'Empire by Vion, Boris Vion. And it's an extraordinary, amazing play. I was playing this central character, Leon, Dupont Leon. Age 49 ans, d'antition, bien entretenue.

• 41:13Elizabeth Day?

  I just, I want to just listen to you speaking French.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Vaccine élégant à répartir sur les membres. So, and this play was very well received. I won the prize, the, the, the prix for the best actor at this competition. And my, the part of the prize was going to Avignon to perform at the festival there. And I thought, and this was what I wanted to do. So suddenly from being at college and going to lectures and all that, I just like, eh, I want to do other stuff. I want to perform. I want to get out there. I want to prove the old vic.

• 41:54Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Wrong.

• 41:56Elizabeth Day?

  I can relate to that desire to prove people wrong. And I think fuel is fuel and whatever gets you to where you need to be, you can use it in that way. Do you feel, I mean, you're clearly an extraordinarily talented person in multiple different directions. You're highly intelligent, you're very musical. Turns out you're fluent at French. You know all about marmots.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  I mean, what else do you want?

• 42:24Elizabeth Day?

  What else do you want? You're a perfect person. But do you, do you feel that it left you with an inferiority complex not having done academia? And do you feel it still?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  It does, yeah. I feel that I was too hasty, that I was impatient and I was not willing to see it through. Because it was only three years. I mean, three years now just, just zipped by in a flash, in a, in a blink of an eye. But then it seemed like an eternity. And I, I suppose it was also partly because I was up in London from living in the West Country. So London was a great adventure, you know, it was, it was a place to explore, a place of opportunity. And, and so these lectures and college life seems desperately dull by comparison.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  And so, yes, I think perhaps again, I was, I was too much in a hurry and I wanted to just get on. I wanted to earn money. I wanted to have a job. I wanted to be independent. I wanted all those things that those, those things give you. They give you a sense of self reliance and independence and all of that. And I still now, but now I think, yeah, I, I have somehow, I feel that I lost something along the way. And that was I didn't pursue, I didn't get that, get to the end. I didn't see it through and that's what annoys me. That's not like me now. I like to see things through now. And that's probably what, what this has taught me is that you have to see something through.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  You have a plan, you see it through. I was too quick to dismiss it as something that wasn't going to be of value. But I think ultimately, long term, it gives you a sense of satisfaction personally, that you've achieved something. And I think that's what I was lacking. And I did feel that slight sense of, I haven't quite, I haven't done this. I haven't seen it through. And so what that has driven me on is to incorporate elements of what the work that I would have probably done as an academic into my stand up. So, you know, to history and, and philosophy and language and all of those subjects which, which interest me.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  I've somehow found a way to weave that into comedy, make it entertaining, make it fun, but maybe a little bit educational as well. So I think maybe that's, I've used that sort of sense of, that, that kind of gnawing sense of like, I haven't quite seen this through. And channeled that into the work that I do now.

• 45:06Elizabeth Day?

  And actually, I think one of your greatest strengths is your curiosity. It's such a precious quality.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:13Elizabeth Day?

  To carry on asking questions of yourself and the world. It's a wonderful thing.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  We have to, that's, that's all we can do.

• 45:21Elizabeth Day?

  My final question is going to be about animals because I know you are an animal lover. And I don't know whether this is still correct, this list, that you keep a mini zoo of around 50 rescue animals, including an armadillo, a guinea pig, a rabbit, ducks, chickens, and previously a large Malay cockerel. Is that correct?

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:41Elizabeth Day?

  Okay. So my question is, which animal do you think has taught you the most?

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I love dogs. I've always loved dogs and there's this sort of, there's a kind of great big dopey faces. Lolling up to you, that constancy, empathy, you can learn a lot from them. I've learnt a lot from, we, we took on some rescue parrots.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  And one of them was a Malacca cockatoo. And it's named because of the area it comes from in the eastern archipelago of Indonesia, the Malacca's. And largely because of that, because of this extraordinary bird, which was funny and temperamental. And she would have a fit one minute and then she would be very sweet and very affectionate one minute. And then have a great big wig out and start dancing and flapping her wings and head banging to metal music. We travelled to the Malacca's and we went to see them in the wild.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  And it's sort of almost, this bird opened up a whole avenue of travel and interest to us. And has really been a huge influence on me, not just personally, but just a kind of my professional life. Because where we went to, where the, where this bird comes from is an island in Seram in eastern Indonesia. And the whole area is called Wallacea. And it was when I went there, when we went to try and see this bird in the wild, I discovered Wallacea. What the hell is Wallacea? Oh, it's named after this bloke Wallace. Who's this guy? Who's Wallace?

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, he, he's a Victorian naturalist explorer, co originated the idea of the theory of evolution with Darwin, you know, natural selection. What? How do I, why do I not know about him? Wallacea is the size of Germany. It's like, this, this guy's got a name, a place the size of Germany named after him. And I don't know who it is. And like you say, the curiosity started to go into overload. And then I wrote this show, this documentary about Wallace. And we made it for the BBC and it was broadcast in a centenary of his death. And, and it's, and it's, has really precipitated a lifelong love of that area and that country.

• 48:11Elizabeth Day?

  Best answer ever. What's the bird's name?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Molly.

• 48:15Elizabeth Day?

  Molly. Thank you.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  Chapeau.

• 48:18Elizabeth Day?

  Chapeau to Molly. Thank you so much, Bill, for, for coming on How to Fail and being so relentlessly curious and inspiring to the rest of us. It's been a real honour.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Thank you, my pleasure.

• 48:32Elizabeth Day?

  I hope you got as much out of this episode of How to Fail as I did. Brought to you by Arna lacto free, delicious dairy with all the taste, easier to digest. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.