Mark Robert Bailey, known by his stage name Bill Bailey, is an English comedian, actor and musician. He is known for his role as Manny in the British sitcom Black Books and for his appearances on the British panel shows Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You and QI. Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in 2003.
About Bill Bailey in brief
Mark Robert Bailey, known by his stage name Bill Bailey, is an English comedian, actor and musician. He is known for his role as Manny in the British sitcom Black Books and for his appearances on the British panel shows Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You and QI. 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. Until 2018, when he revealed the correct date, Bailey’s birthday was wrongly recorded by the media as 24 February. He spent most of his childhood in Keynsham, a town situated between Bath and Bristol in the West of England. Bailey 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, which often surprised his teachers. He would often combine music and sport by leading the singing on the long coach trip back from away rugby fixtures. He started studies for an English degree at Westfield College of the University of London but left after a year. 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.
He went solo the next year with the one man show Bill Bailey’s Cosmic Jam. The show led to a recording at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London which was broadcast in 1997 onChannel 4 as a one-hour special called Bill Bailey Live. It was not until 2005 that this was released on DVD uncut and under its original title. It marked the first time that Bailey had been able to put together his music-modern gags with the whimsical rambling style he is now known for. After supporting Donna McPhail in 1995 and winning a tie in Time Out award, he returned to Edinburgh in 1996 with a show that was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1998, the BBC gave him his own television show, Bill Bailey? Is It It? Bailey’s debut on the children’s show Motormouths was in the late 1980s playing the piano for a late-night slot on BBC One. He was also made an honorary member of the Society of Crematorium Organists. He performed with a boy band called \”The Famous Five\”. His acting roles included a part in a Workers’ Revolutionary Party stage production called The Printers, which also featured Vanessa Redgrave and Frances de la Tour. Bailey almost gave up comedy to take up a telesales job. In 1996, he won the Best Live Stand-Up award at the British Comedy Awards in 1996, the nomination for which was enough to get him a nomination for a Perrier Award.
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