Bill Bailey News (of sorts)

09 Mar 06	Sorry, I've been concentrating on other things, like doing Podcasts, going outside, etc. I return in order to let you know that Bill is playing 2 nights at the Pleasance in London, which I believe is a town to the east of Reading. This is what I've been told by Ryan, from the venue; Hello just wanted to let you know that I have booked bill in for 2 warm up shows on the 17th & 18th March and tickets are now on sale. It's a work in progress. Box office 020 7609 1800 Bill's also playing UCLA, in Americaland, from the 5th to the 23rd of April, 2006. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster.com, but buying through them makes you evil. Try getting them from somewhere cheaper. Prices are as follows: Wed, Thu, Sun $20; Fri, Sat $25. UCLA student prices: Wed, Thu, Sun $7; Fri, Sat $10 If anyone records a show, please let me know.
06 Nov 05	It's been a while. Just a quick update to say that there's a new Bill Bailey DVD out on Monday. It's called Cosmic Jam, and is one of his earlier (pre-Bewilderness) live shows. Yes, Bill did a panel show called Cosmic Jam, but it's not that. Bill promoted it on Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 show yesterday morning. There's a clip of it on the audio page. He was also talking about the "Rock with laughter" show that he'll be appearing at, which sounds largely appalling.
12 May 05	This from Chortle.co.uk: Bill Bailey and Alan Davies are to star as The Odd Couple at this year?s Edinburgh Fringe. Neil Simon?s classic comedy is to be produced by Guy Masterson, who brought 12 Angry Men to the Assembly Rooms in 2003, featuring a cast of comedians. He was also director of last year?s One Flew Over the Cuckoo?s Nest, before quitting because he found the clashes with the stars, which included Christian Slater and Frances Barber, left him ?physically and emotionally unable to continue?. However, this year he is back in the Assembly Rooms with the comedy, made famous by the 1968 film starring Jack Lemmon and Walther Matthau. Casting for the show, which is likely to be one of the biggest draws of the Fringe, has been kept under wraps ahead of the festival programme?s launch on June 9. But Chortle can reveal that Bailey and Davies are to play the lead roles. The supporting cast will include many of the comics who appeared in both 12 Angry Men and Cuckoo?s Nest, including comics Owen O'Neill, Ian Coppinger, Dave Johns, Phil Nichol, Katherine Jakeways and Lizzie Roper. The show will take place in the Assembly Rooms? new space, the 790-seater Assembly Hall on The Mound that was the former home of the Scottish Parliament. The design team is also the same as 12 Angry Men and Cuckoo's Nest. Thanks to Danny from www.15storeyshigh.net for that tidbit. By the way (I know it's taken a long time) I've finally got Bill's excellent Room 101 appearance onto my PC, and will soon encode it to xvid or a similar format. Most of you probably already have a slightly bastardised version grabbed from uknova or somewhere like that, but I'll do my own version so I know what I'm plugging.
03 Apr 05	Bill provides the voice of the sperm whale in the new movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Also, the Comic Aid DVD has been available to buy for a few weeks now. You can get it from Amazon and the usual places.
26 Feb 05	Comic Aid is on tonight - BBC1 at 9:15, then BBC2 at 10:15. Here's the BBC write-up - Comic Aid.
25 Feb 05	I've added a recording of The Rubber Bishops (Bill Bailey and Sean Lock) from a benefit gig they did in Edinburgh, possibly in 1993. You can find it on the audio page. Bill's been busy with benefits recently as well. He played the Big Comedy Bash at Reading's Hexagon last weekend, and Comic Aid in London. Comic Aid was recorded for BBC radio and TV, so look out for it in the schedules. It will also be released on DVD in the near future.
20 Jan 05	Yes, it's very short notice. I wasn't paying attention, OK? I was about to say this - Part Troll is on Channel 4 on Friday 21st January, at 10:35pm. Get some booze in and enjoy it. I had meant to write a review of the DVD, but it'll probably be unnecessary as of tomorrow, as everyone who might want to see it will have seen it. Anyway, enjoy.
16 Nov 04	Part Troll is (nearly) here! In celebration of this news, feast your eyes on these preview clips - click here for clip 1, click here for clip 2 and click here for clip 3. Aren't you lucky people? Well, not necessarily. But you can find out by entering this competition to win your very own copy of Part Troll. If you're not feeling lucky, you can still preorder it from Amazon. Here's the press release that's been issued to herald the new DVD - click here. [Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for the competition. I'm just linking to the competition which is organised by a company charged with publicising the DVD's release]
03 Nov 04	XFM kindly inform me (and therefore you) that Bill will be on XFM this Friday (5th Nov). He's on Richard Bacon's show between 4pm and 7pm. On the 19th, Rich Hall will be on the show, too. Londoners can hear XFM on 104.9FM, the rest of the UK can hear it on DAB radio (depending on coverage) and Sky channel 864. There's also the website, which probably has streaming radio.
20 Oct 04	Look out; there's a new Bill Bailey DVD and accompanying audio CD coming out next month. Amazon are taking pre-orders at the moment. Click here for the DVD. The CD isn't on there at the moment, but I think Play are taking preorders. Also available since last week is the third series of Black Books. And for those who hadn't already bought the previous series, you can buy the three as a box set here. At least they didn't add a load of extras like they did with Spaced... the bastards. Bill is also playing the Apollo in London, from the 25th of October to the 4th of December. You can buy tickets here.
08 Oct 04	Forgot to say that a new series of QI starts tonight on BBC2 at 10pm. Guests include Bill Bailey and Sean Lock. Can't ask for much more than that - Fry, Lock, Bailey.
07 Sep 04	Oh yeah, I'm running a web site. I've got a few things to upload at the moment, which will be worth waiting for. In the meantime, go to the Video page to find a new clip (in DivX format, by popular demand) of Bill as "Stebbington Bailey", folk singer, performing at the Comedy Store as part of Rich Hall's show. There. You're not going to find that in many places, are you? I've also changed the links on the Other Performers page, so that you can get the Sean Lock mp3s again. They really are worth it. The Rich Hall mp3s will follow soon.
11 May 04	Ah, shit. Look, we had a bit of a problem for a while. The Sean Lock and Rich Hall MP3s are probably still unavailable at the moment. One of my other ventures (http://jirob.cjb.net/) got mentioned in the NME and suddenly was swamped by suspect bandwidth stranglers. The upshot was that my webspace providers blocked mp3 downloads. And I haven't had time to move things around yet, meaning the non-Bill stuff is still knackered. I will fix it though. I've got Bill's Room 101 appearance on tape somewhere, so I intend to stick that on the site in the near future. I also have a bootleg recording of a benefit show he did with Sean Lock (as the Rubber Bishops) at the Edinburgh fringe some years ago. I'll pluck the relevant bits out and stick them on the site. And finally, I'd like to thank the people who continue sending me emails as if I'm Bill Bailey. I can assure you all that the contact page is not an elaborate hoax. I'm not Bill Bailey. In the past few weeks, I've had invitations to dinner, requests to present prize-giving ceremonies and personal anecdotes from people I've never heard of. I'm thinking of starting to accept the dinner invitations, actually. I think I've given you enough clues on the aforementioned contact page. In fact, they're not even clues, they're just statements. I'm not him. But thanks for the invites. If anyone wants to send me vouchers for Threshers, I'll gladly pretend to be Bill Bailey for a few minutes.
09 Mar 04	The second series of Black Books is out on DVD (and presumably video) on the 22nd of March. And this time, I can offer you this link with a clear conscience, as Amazon seem to be offering it at an extremely reasonable £13.99. Without wishing to turn into a cheap salesman, I will point out that if you spend £25, you can select free postage. So you could combine it with Rich Hall's jaw-droppingly superb Otis Lee Crenshaw DVD and even Bill Bailey's CD (which is the same as the Bewilderness CD you'll find on the audio page of this site, but the new one has an extra track). Sorry. Enough of the sales patter. The new series of Black Books starts on Channel 4 at 10:30 this Thursday. Make sure you turn to BBC3 afterwards to catch the peerless 15 Storeys High, which not only stars Sean Lock, but included a cameo from Bill Bailey the other week. He played a guitar teacher who's as bad at teaching as Sean Lock's character is at swimming instruction. Finally, I've got a video card for the PC. So more clips to arrive in the near future.