Wednesday 21 December 2011
Billy Connolly: The Globe-Trotting Big Yin Drops In On Brighton
Billy Connolly has something of the Marmite about him, you either want to spread the word of his existence, or he's just another motor mouth relic from comedy past.
But having recently followed his excellent televised road trip along the length of Route 66, it plainly shone through what a compassionate, inquisitive and naturally humorous man he is.
Connolly comes from good stock: "My father was a very strong man. Broad and strong. He had an 18½-inch neck collar. Huge, like a bull. He was 'Big Billy' and I was 'Wee Billy'.
"And then I got bigger than him, and the whole thing got out of control. And then I became 'The Big Yin' in Scotland."
But The Big Yin wasn't content to just be the king of his own domain, soon he would be 'The Big Yin' worldwide.
His first solo album, Billy Connolly Live!, a mixture of comedic songs and short monologues hinted at what was to follow.
But it was his live double-album in 1973 that propelled him to stardom.
With his trademark banana boots and regular appearances on primetime TV chat shows, his (then) outrageous stage-patter and finger-pointing humour saw him grab both headlines and awards.
He claims to have never to have told a joke that he regrets: "I remember once doing a thing about childbirth, just making it up as I went along, and somebody said I was a fascist."
"I couldn't work it out. How had they got from childbirth to fascism? I don't know .. I've told jokes where nothing has happened, and that's worse."
Now just one year shy of turning 70, Connolly is as bullish about his age as he is about life itself:
"I don't give a f**k about itl The importance of your age is the same importance as your street number: absolutely none. And I'm not saying that because I'm old. I've always felt that."
Just as well really, as Billy is stopping off in Brighton next year on his The Man Live tour. It's a tour that will see him return to what he does best, stand-up comedy. Sweet!
Billy Connolly plays the Brighton Centre on 15th and 16th March. For more details visit www.brightoncentre.co.uk.
by: Mike Cobley
|
|
It really should be ridiculous, but it isn't. Somehow concocting a seemingly obnoxious stew that includes such tasty ingredients as incest, violence, mutilation, and nudity - at Theatre Royal Brighton, no less - all comes together in the mix to serve up one of the tastiest treats of Brighton Festival.
With tongues firmly in cheeks, Spymonkey brought Oedipussy onto the hallowed Brighton stage and unravelled the tale o...
more >>
|
 The Temper Trap pic by Andy Sturmey
With the Festival and Festival Fringe already packing the streets, bars and venues of Brighton, it got pretty wild on the streets of the city when the annual Great Escape Festival was added to the throng over the weekend.
It was difficult to get a foot in many-a venue, let alone an eye on the performers, as vast queues snaked the...
more >>
|
Mariella Frostrup is both the intellectual kingpin and host of The Book Show, on Sky Arts. Featuring an array of A-list authors and other big-name guests, it was great to see the channel's flagship programme leave its studio setting and head to the Brighton Festival for two special recordings.
|
One of the hidden themes of Brighton Festival 2012 so far seems to be of a kind of theatre that is not theatre, at least not as you might expect it to be.
I have seen work enacted well out of any theatrical context in warehouses, theatre in a theatre but with a gla...
more >>
|
I fell under the spell of poet Lemn Sissay at the Pavilion Theatre, on Tuesday night. I fell for his enthusiasm, warmth and unwavering passion for the topic in hand. Hell, when I pass on I reckon Sissay will even make me sound interesting!
With every seat taken, the house lights dipped and a screen came to life with the image of the recently depart...
more >>
|
I have always had a curious fascination about what goes on other people's houses, have you? Are they like me, my family, or not? What do they think? How do they cope with things? How do they live?
Many times on a dark night I have walked home past the station and up over the Seven Dials and looked up or do...
more >>
|
Ashley Varney from Leonards-on Sea accomplished an incredible 30-race running feat when he recently crossed the London Marathon finishing line.
The 42 year old Sussex swimming pool engineer took on 30 races, which he named &...
more >>
|
Shakespeare's plays are best watched standing up. I watched his work like this as a youth paying a fiver for standing matinee places at the rear of the stalls at the old RSC in Stratford Upon Avon, in Warwickshire.
Once, all the standing-ups cheered loudly, like football fans, as Edmund the Bastard was finally killed off i...
more >>
|
"What do you wear to a literary event?" my friend Rachel asked me in the school playground a couple of weeks ago after I had invited her to the Faber Social, at the Corn Exchange, on the opening night of Brighton Festival 2012.
“I don’t know, whatever you like I suppose”, I answered<...
more >>
|
The Bee Detective must have looked, to the assembled band of worthies from the cultural Olympiad, to be just up their street. As they clutched their list of 'things we need from our attempt to show that sports people are intelligent too and that the Olympics is actually not a boring load of expensive shit, a fitness contest sponsored by McDonald's and Coca-Cola, a drug-fuelled cheats paradise with mind numbing events like rifle shooting and wrestling actually CHARGING money to get in' they must have thought like this.
It is about the death of bees, a modern issue with environment relevance… tick!
It is c...
more >>
|
|
|