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Welcome to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Please welcome to the stage,

Bill Bailey.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

APPLAUSE

This programme contains strong language and adult humour

CHEERING

Thank you. Hello!

WHOOPING

Welcome, welcome everybody,

to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

What a fantastic venue.

It's a great honour to be here. Some of you,

I imagine, will be opera buffs.

And, uh, you'll be thinking

this is a bit odd, isn't it?

Bill Bailey, a comedian in the Royal Opera House?

Has there been some sort of mix up in the booking?

Is Katherine Jenkins appearing at the Chuckle Lounge in Lowestoft?

Which I would pay good money to see.

LAUGHTER

Uh, a little bit of housekeeping before we start.

I've got a jazz button. When I deploy the jazz button,

it turns the Opera House briefly into a jazz club.

SOFT JAZZ

So I will be using that in an emergency.

And I also have a mediaeval button.

JAUNTY STRING MUSIC

So, there's that.

Uh, I have a Boris randomiser.

BORIS JOHNSON: I have had some drugs. OK.

And...

LAUGHTER

I've no idea what's going to come out of that.

And, er, I also have a Bin Of Wonder.

ANGELIC CHOIR

I'm guessing you might want to see that again.

AUDIENCE: Yes!

I have a Bin Of Wonder.

ANGELIC CHOIR

CHEERING

One more time? AUDIENCE: Yes!

I have a Bin Of Wonder.

ANGELIC CHOIR

APPLAUSE

Now, some of you may be thinking,

"Why has Bill got some kind of barbecue on the stage?"

Well, this is actually a rather intriguing instrument.

It's actually a convex steel drum or a handpan.

A Hang drum, if you will,

and it makes a rather beautiful and intriguing sound.

I'll give you a brief demo.

TUNEFUL CHIMES

APPLAUSE There it is.

This, um... this rather lovely thing, it's unfortunate.

It has been espoused by the tie-dye community.

Uh, it gets used a lot on

the promotional videos for yoga retreats, you know.

AMERICAN ACCENT: "Welcome to the Earth Wellness Centre.

"Drift downstream on a Lilo of the limbic system.

"Join us for a Zen humming and healing weekend

"with oatmeal conversation."

You know, it's just been traduced by the Reiki-flakearati, and, uh...

But you've got to say that it does lend itself

rather to the meditative act, doesn't it not?

It's the perfect instrument, in a way that perhaps

the bagpipes wouldn't be quite so relaxing.

RELAXING CHORDS

"Relax your mind. Imagine you're on a beautiful river..."

BAGPIPES PLAY "Relax!"

So!

Over here... Now, this is the theremin.

You play it by proximity.

STRANGE WARBLING

It was invented by accident

by a Russian KGB radio engineer in 1920.

Of course, you knew that.

And, uh, it was, um, it was, uh,

basically there's two electromagnetic processors which...

INSTRUMENT PULSES

...create these realms of oscillation, as I call them.

I mean, it's not called that, but I like the word,

like the term, "realm of oscillation."

It sounds like an experimental music duo from Lowestoft.

"Hello, we're Realm Of Oscillation.

"This is our new track, Mole Frequency."

Oh, great. Uh...

And you play it by proximity.

You move your hand into its realm.

ETHEREAL TONES

And you can play with any part of the body,

you can play it with the head.

It's intriguing and annoying.

And, uh...

...this is something perhaps more familiar.

This is an iPhone. Now there's an app on it called GarageBand,

a beautiful instrument called the erhu, a Chinese bowed guitar.

MOURNFUL STRINGS

And I've contrived to present a piece for you,

a duet for two iPhones.

TRANSIENT MUSIC

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

INCOHERENT BORIS JOHNSON NOISES

Yes, well...

None of this makes any sense.

I tell you what didn't make sense to me.

You know the high-street freezer chain, Iceland?

OK, so, you know what?

I may have pitched this a little bit wrong for the Royal Opera House.

You get a different class of punter here, don't you?

You're looking at me like, "What?

"A high-street freezer chain?

"Good Lord, what is such a thing?"

"I love coming to these does, you know,

"to hear these lowbrow comedians and the humdrum lives that they lead.

"Tell us more, vaudevillian.

"Tell us of this high street of which you speak."

"A mechanical device for freezing things?

"Good Lord, you'll be telling me that women have got the vote next.

"Good Lord, how do we get cool things, Marjorie?"

"Well, a chap from the village brings a block of ice up on a cart

"and Francois carves it into a swan and we serve the canapes on that."

"Oh, I see.

"Carry on."

So...

Should we try that again?

You know the high-street freezer chain, Iceland, right?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

Of course you do. Now...

They got into a bit of a contretemps with the country,

Iceland, right - this is a true story -

Iceland, the country, took them to court

to stop them using the name Iceland,

lest they be mixed up. Right?

Lest people were unable to distinguish between the two.

But let me ask you a genuine question,

Royal Opera House. Who?

Who are these people incapable of distinguishing between

a shop and a country?

Who are these people coming out of Reykjavik airport

and standing there looking around going,

"Oh, no, no, no.

"This is just lava fields and disgraced banks.

"Where's my cod parcel in a cheese and chive sauce?"

I've got a theory about who these people might be.

It's a little bit contentious.

Idiots, right?

We all know them. We've all seen them in Casualty.

They're the ones with a compass stuck in their forehead

because they tried to draw a circumference of their own face.

People that say things like, "Wearing a mask,

"it's like living in Nazi Germany. Wearing a mask."

Yeah, because that's what the Nazis are known for, wasn't it?

Mild inconvenience.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE Oh.

"What, take the bins out on a Wednesday,

"as opposed to a Thursday? It's like living in Nazi Germany!"

Anyway.

Good evening. I'm Bill Bailey, by the way.

I'm a person of note.

I was voted seventh most intelligent person on the TV

by readers of Radio Times magazine.

So, um... Yes. Thank you. SCATTERED APPLAUSE

Number six was Lisa Simpson,

a fictitious cartoon character.

I have a recognisable face,

and sometimes it can lead to some sort of rather odd exchanges.

I was driving down to the West Country.

I came out of a service station and I wasn't wearing a seat belt.

These two cops stopped me and he said,

"You weren't wearing a seat belt." I went, "No."

And then he tried to tell me a story.

Just sort of demonstrating the dangers of not wearing a seat belt.

Didn't make any sense at all. He said,

"You know the band Def Leppard?"

I said, "Yeah." He goes, "You know, the drummers only got one arm?"

I said, "Yeah?" "You know how he lost it?"

"No." "Car crash, wasn't it? Yeah.

"Thrown from the vehicle,

"ripped his arm right off, wasn't wearing a seat belt.

"Lost his arm. Drummer.

"His girlfriend, she was in the passenger seat.

"She was wearing a seat belt.

"Killed instantly."

So, like I say, doesn't make any sense.

Right, OK, time for a bit of a song, I reckon, Royal Opera House.

So...

...this is a four-string Appalachian blues guitar.

And it has been cunningly fashioned from a Holy Bible.

So it makes a righteous sound.

Two settings - Old Testament, New Testament.

♪ A long time ago

♪ In a place not unlike this

♪ I was feeling low and I stared into the abyss

♪ And I prayed to the Lord

♪ But I'm a sinner

♪ So I was not prioritised

♪ A heavenly voice said,

♪ "Your prayer is important to the Lord

♪ "We are currently experiencing a high volume of prayer

♪ "Some prayers are recorded for training purposes

♪ "You are currently EIGHT MILLIONTH in the queue."

♪ Well, I was alone and confused Like a pangolin in space

♪ And in my time of torment

♪ Help came from a different place

♪ Well, I stood on the clifftop

♪ I looked down at the sea

♪ I heard the devil whisper

♪ "Are you looking for me?"

♪ In that kind of generic American accent

♪ That the devil sometimes speaks in...

You never get a West Country devil, do you?

WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: "Hello there, I'm Satan!"

No, you're not. "I flippin' well am!

"I've got the hooves and everything."

Shut up. "All right."

♪ Deal out the cards son and your soul will be released

♪ But understand if you lose this hand

♪ Your soul belongs to me

♪ Deal out the cards, son

♪ And your soul will be released

♪ Name your card game, son

♪ I said Happy Families

♪ Well, the devil raised an eyebrow

♪ He said, "Prepare to meet thy maker"

♪ Well, I looked the devil in the eye

♪ And played Mr Bun the Baker

♪ Well, a crowd of demons laughed and shrieked

♪ And the Devil's Fork got closer

♪ The devil looked me right in the eye and played Mr Grits the Grocer

♪ Well, the devil started cackling

♪ And he'd be cackling yet

♪ But the Prince of Lies had no reply to Mr Flea the Vet

♪ Well, the devil hung his head that day

♪ And my soul jumped for joy

♪ Cos the devil knew I still had in my hand

♪ Jones the Delivery Boy

♪ I beat the devil on that day

♪ I drank from life's sweet cup

♪ Because there ain't no Jones the Delivery Boy

♪ I made the sucker up

♪ I beat the devil, beat the devil, beat the devil. ♪

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

I'm just thinking I might use this

like the old-style comics used to do a rimshot after a joke.

You know, they'd do a joke and they'd go,

"Badum-tsh," like that.

This is more of a sort of a new-age rimshot, isn't it?

I could do an old-style joke.

I went for a innuendoscopy. He said, "Where do you want it?"

I said, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

HE PLAYS DRUM

Just a brief word about comedy, though.

I mean, it's very important. We need comedy, right?

We need it, you know, it's important.

We need comedy to fight back against the forces of racism.

Right? We need that!

My weapon of choice is the limerick,

much underused in the battle against racism.

So, here we go. The fightback starts here.

I once played a game of Yahtzee...

Look, it's a tricky thing to rhyme, all right?

LAUGHTER

I once played a game of Yahtzee

With a man who was clearly a Nazi

He threw a four

Then he walked out the door

Because the black dots on the white dice annoyed him,

As it was black and white, working together in a meaningful way.

Yeah, comedy is very important. Jokes are important.

Jokes are historical. I mean, one of the great classics of jokes,

the joke format, the knock-knock joke is rooted in history.

Anyone know where it comes from? You.

Where does it come from? No? No-one? No, no idea?

No? Front door.

Beg pardon? The front door. The what sorry?

The front door?

No, I like it. It's a good answer, but...

So what you're saying is, without the door,

there would be no knock-knock jokes. Is that what you're saying?

So really, what we're asking,

the question is, when were doors invented?

That's really...

Because surely the knock-knock joke followed

in pretty short order after that.

"I've invented a door." "Wait a minute.

"I see an opportunity for hilarity".

Anyone else? The porter scene, Macbeth.

Ooh, now, that is very good knowledge.

Excellent work, sir. Yes. The porter scene from Macbeth.

The porter wakes up with a hangover,

pretends to be the keeper of the gates of hell.

We've all done it. And, uh...

He creates this scene where he goes,

"Knock, knock." "Who's there in the name of Beelzebub?"

"Here's a farmer who's hanged himself in expectation of plenty."

It's not hilarious, but, um...

...then again, a lot of Shakespearean jokes aren't really, are they?

"I went to town in a galliard, I came home in a coranto."

Ha! Nothing. So...

"Taxi for Shakespeare." You know, it's...

One year, we were opening some crackers

and a knock-knock joke came out.

My wife attempted to say it, but it went wrong somehow.

She contrived to get it wrong.

She picked up a little bit of paper with a joke on it.

She looked at it and she said,

"Who's there?"

Whereupon the person she was telling the joke to said, "Knock-knock?"

Then my wife said, "Who?"

And to this day,

that's one of the finest knock-knock jokes I've ever heard.

BORIS JOHNSON: You can't eat chicken in a onesie.

Yeah. Well, um, now...

Look, what is this, like, the mediaeval news?

JAUNTY STRING MUSIC

"Today, demons were driven from an agitated pig in Gloucester." So...

Anyone here in a relationship?

SOME CHEERS

Oh, about seven or eight people. Uh...

The rest of you, just singles looking for love.

Is that right?

Yeah. Wow, you thought going to a Bill Bailey gig,

that's where you're...

...pick up someone, yeah.

Yes. OK. All right. Anyone?

You. What about you?

STAMMERS: Are you in a rela... uh... you know, liais...

You know, with... uh?

Is it all, uh, all fine?

No, maybe this isn't the forum to discuss that, but, uh...

Thing is, right, my wife and I recently celebrated

20 years of marriage, and so what I thought I'd...

CHEERING Thank you.

And so what I thought I'd do, I'd write a poem to commemorate this

particular watershed in our relationship.

It's called Love.

This may ring a bell with you or anyone from,

you know, whatever end of the sexual buffet you choose to graze.

Which I can guarantee you that those words are the first

time they've been uttered from this stage, right?

♪ Whichever Whichever

♪ End of the sexual

♪ Buffer you choose to graze You choose to graze

♪ You choose to graze You choose to graze

♪ You choose to graze

♪ From the sexual buffer you choose to graze

♪ Which is the end Which is the end

♪ Which is the end, O, which is the end

♪ Which is the end of the sexual buffer you choose to graze? ♪

CHEERING Something like that.

Anyway...

...here it is. It's called Love.

Hey, you are my world. Yeah.

Where'd you put my keys?

I don't have them.

Yes, you've got them in your bag.

No. Definitely. Nope.

Well, that's the only place they might be.

What about the hook where they normally are?

What? Have you looked there? No.

All right, then.

All right, then, let's have a bit of class in proceedings.

One of the great operatic arias, La Habanera,

has this wonderful sort of mix of major and minor, you know,

from Bizet's Carmen, when it goes from

HE PLAYS MINOR CHORD ...to the...

HE PLAYS MAJOR CHORD ...to the major...

HE PLAYS MINOR CHORD ...to the minor again.

It's a beautiful demonstration of the fickle nature of love.

I can't do it justice without an opera singer.

So will you please welcome as a special treat,

the wonderful, Florence Hvorostovsky.

Ladies and gentlemen, Florence Hvorostovsky!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you so much. Florence Hvorostovsky, there.

What a treat! So, please bring on the bells of opera.

TO THE TUNE OF NESSUN DORMA

Seeing as we're on a bit of a nostalgic tip,

I'd like to delve into my past and sing you

a song from my youth growing up in the West Country.

One of my favourite songs of that time.

This is Old MacDonald Had A Farm,

but sung in the style of the bluesman, Tom Waits.

HE PLAYS BLUES SCALE

♪ Old MacDonald

♪ Sick of the farm

♪ Wants a new life

♪ A new place to go

♪ Yes, he does now

♪ But if you strip away the consonants

♪ From new directions

♪ You're left with

♪ E, I, O

♪ Well, Old MacDonald

♪ Trying to make it right with his kids

♪ Should have done it a long time ago

♪ They've all grown up and moved away now

♪ Old MacDonald moved into banking

♪ And has avoided the agricultural sector

♪ Suck out the vowels from reinvention

♪ You get E, I

♪ E, I, O

♪ No more echoes on the farm

♪ On the farm, on the farm, on the farm

♪ No more duck sounds in the air

♪ There's a quack-quack here

♪ But there's no quack-quack there

♪ Drunk on the insurance money

♪ From torching the farm

♪ Old MacDonald lies

♪ In a hospital bed

♪ Next to a guy with a compass in his head

♪ And sitting there looking at his leg infection

♪ Thinking about his old friend His nemesis

♪ E, I, E, I, O. ♪

Comedy. It gets me around, you know.

One of the sort of things I do when I'm on tour as a hobby,

I collect Google reviews of Poundland stores.

Honestly, seriously,

if you've got a spare minute,

it's the gift that keeps on giving. It really is.

It gives you a wonderful glimpse into the world of British society.

Here are a few genuine reviews of Poundland stores in Britain.

"Five stars. Loads of stuff for a pound."

Somebody felt the need to put that in there.

"Four stars. I stole from here."

"Three stars. Dirty baskets!"

I don't know whether that's a euphemism for something dirty.

"Ooh, dirty baskets." I don't know.

I love this one. "Two stars. The staff were very common."

My favourite, a one-star, one-word review -

"Overpriced."

I look for the little sort of glimmers of hope.

And sometimes you find them, right?

Someone has taken the trouble to set up a Twitter account

in the name of Samuel Pepys, the 17th-century London diarist.

Right? So the Twitter feed is just genuine extracts

from Pepys's diary, which is a beautiful thing.

But of course, this being Twitter,

there's a lot of people that've never heard of Samuel Pepys,

so they just think it's some old bloke talking in a weird way.

So you get these fantastic exchanges, like this one.

This is an entry from 1665.

"I was mightily troubled with a looseness." Right.

"And feeling for the chamber pot, there was none.

"I, having called the maid up out of her bed -

"she had forgot, I suppose, to put one there.

"So I was forced in this strange house

"to rise and shit in the chimney twice.

And somebody replied, "Been there, bruv. Been there."

So if you know anybody called Adam Hodgson,

don't let him stay in your spare room. That's my advice.

Suddenly I find myself, you know, pictures in the tabl...

"Ooh, Bill Bailey, what he's wearing, what he's doing."

And you become a commodity.

And you know, things that you do and say and wear

are worth money - sometimes a lot of money.

You know, video footage, sort of intemperate comments,

suddenly they're in the tabloids, you know.

And this came to a head quite dramatically

when I received a message via Twitter from someone unknown to me.

And he said, "Bill, I just thought I'd warn you.

"Here are some screenshots of emails I've sent to The Sun newspaper."

And I was like - immediately, my heart starts going like this -

"Oh, my God, what have I done? Have I misidentified a hawk moth?"

And then...

So then, the first email, right - this is all true, right?

It said, "Dear, The Sun newspaper,

"I have some compromising video footage of Bill Bailey.

"Would you be interested?" Right?

So The Sun came back in short order. "Yes, we would.

"What is the nature of this video footage?" Right?

And this is what he wrote. This is what he wrote.

He said, "I was walking in the countryside

"and I heard a commotion in a nearby field.

"I looked through the hedge and there was TV's Bill Bailey

"trying to get on the back of a llama." All right?

LAUGHTER

"He was clearly intoxicated.

"He was swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels.

"When he saw me, he became abusive

"and shouting an Apache war cry, chased me across the field.

"Would you be interested in this footage?"

And they came back and said,

"Yes, we'd be very interested in the footage."

And he said, "How much would you be prepared to pay?"

And they came back straight away. The opening bid, £20,000. All right?

So the bloke messaged me and he said,

"Do you fancy doing it and we'll split the money?"

APPLAUSE

I mean, it's tempting, right?

Keep your eyes peeled on YouTube, that's what I'm saying.

APPLAUSE

One of the great things about this job is you get to travel.

You know, you get an idea about a place,

you get a sense of a place.

Sometimes from just your first arrival,

in the airport or whatever.

Australia, a very friendly place. Australians are very friendly.

It's a very friendly country, once you're in.

But getting into Australia can be a little problematic, you know?

They have very, very strict customs. Incredibly strict.

They ask you loads and loads of questions.

They're quite brusque.

When I arrived in Melbourne once, this bloke looked at me

and he goes... AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: "Right."

And he goes, "Have you got tuberculosis?"

I was like, "Uh! Er, w..."

Straight out of the traps. You know, you feel nervous.

"Well, I've got a bit of a tickle. I've got a bit of a tickle. Um..."

And then they're obsessed with farms.

AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: "You been on a farm recently?

"Do you know any farmers?

"Have you fallen asleep under a horse,

"and the horse has drooled into your eye?"

"You ever kissed anyone you weren't in a relationship with?"

"You ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have?

"Have you ever fallen for someone so hard

"that you'd walk through fire for them,

"but then they go to Thailand with a fitness instructor

"and your heart freezes,

"and the slightest touch'd shatter it into a million pieces?"

"No." "Welcome to Australia."

Some places... some places are very friendly.

Sweden. That's a very friendly place. It's actually almost too friendly.

You know? They're, like, ridiculously friendly.

They're like... SWEDISH ACCENT: "Hey! OK!"

You're like, "All right, back off." HE CHUCKLES NERVOUSLY

This one guy said to me, he goes, "OK. You come to Sweden, yeah?"

"Yeah." "OK."

He goes, "OK, one more question, and you can come into Sweden!"

LAUGHTER OK...

"Hope you get it right. So...

"..have you said anything mean about anybody in the last month?"

"No." "OK. Welcome to Sweden!"

South Africa - a little bit different.

I think I might... Do you know what?

I just think I got some bloke having a bad day.

I was in Cape Town Airport and I was going through,

and the bloke said, "What's in the bag?"

And I went, "Er... Oh, it's just duty-free."

SOUTH-AFRICAN ACCENT: "Oh, duty-free, eh? Duty-free!"

"Er, yeah. Yeah, it's duty-free."

"Oh, all right. What's that, then?"

"Er, Toblerone."

"Toblerone, eh?! You think you can bring Toblerone in here?"

"Eh... Er... yeah. What's wrong with that?"

"It can be used as a weapon."

"No, it can't."

"Yeah, you put it in the freezer, you get it nice and hard,

"you whittle away with a sharp knife,

"and then you gaffer-tape it to a stale baguette,

"you have a formidable weapon."

"You're just a nutter."

People are obsessed with this country, aren't they?

They're obsessed with Britain.

We love a bit of mischievousness,

we love to deliberately spike something, make it go wrong.

"Oh-ho-ho, whoops-a-daisy!"

I was having dinner in France with three Brits.

A waiter dropped a full tray of drinks, "Ger-juzz!" Like that.

No-one batted an eyelid.

The four Brits, to a man, simultaneously,

"Wey-y-y! Loser! Butterfingers!"

I was on a train, right. In Britain, all right?

We stopped, made an unscheduled stop in a cutting, right?

There was a smell of smoke in the carriage,

and everyone's like that, "What's that?"

An announcement came on...

NASAL TONE: "I apologise for the delay.

"There appears to be a slight technical problem.

"We'll get that sorted out as soon as we can."

And he then... He forgot to turn the microphone off.

So then we heard this,

"Gary! It's on fire. What are we gonna do?!"

The whole carriage just erup... Cheered.

"Wey! We're on fire! Woo-hoo!"

People were texting their friends,

"We're on fire. Lol. On a train. Fire emoji. Ha-ha."

German people are going,

GERMAN ACCENT: "We must evacuate the train."

And all the Brits are conga-ing up the carr...

"We're on fire! Woo-hoo!"

HE CHUCKLES

One of the most chaotic but beautiful places I've been to

is Indonesia.

Indonesia - a place of great beauty, wonderful people,

a place where the normal rules don't apply, though.

I mean, it's a place where chaos reigns.

It's the only... I mean, things happen there

that just don't happen anywhere in the world.

I was booked on a domestic flight within Indonesia,

and I got to the airport and the flight had left early, right?

Now...

...I can't tell you how much that blew my mind, right?

HE STAMMERS What?

And he went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got most of the passengers on

"and the weather was good,

"so they thought they'd sort of get ahead of themselves."

I got on a little inter-island hopper plane once in Indonesia.

The safety chat was a thing of beauty.

The pilot was fiddling around in the cockpit,

and then he turned round like that

and seemed genuinely surprised to see passengers.

And then he just went, "All right?" Like that.

What are we gonna do? "Mm, OK. You're the boss."

Br-r-r-oom!

I was there to make a documentary.

We were trying to film the dance of the red bird-of-paradise. One...

This extraordinary bird.

It dwells in the deep jungles of Eastern Indonesia.

Very few people have even seen it.

And it performs this extraordinary dance.

It's a preposterously plumed bird, right?

It's wires and feathers and plumage.

It's got a look on its face that says, "I should be extinct." Right?

I mean, it's just...

It seems bemused by its own longevity.

And every morning at dawn, in the deep jungle,

at the top of a jungle canopy, 120ft up,

it performs an elaborate dance to get a mate, right?

Every morning at dawn. Can you imagine, fellas?

Every morning, having to get up - "Oh, for goodness... Here we go."

FUNKY MUSIC PLAYS

FUNKY MUSIC STOPS Like that. Every morning.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yeah. Er...

The thing is, right, I didn't get to see it.

Because you have to be pulled up in a harness, 120ft up,

to see this dance.

There was no way I'm getting in this harness,

because, um, I had, well - not to put too fine a point in it -

I was much troubled with a looseness.

So the thought of being hoisted 120ft up in a harness,

above my friends and family...

"Let us never speak of this again."

But when I'm in a country,

I like to be able to speak a bit of the language, you know?

So I bought a little phrasebook, an Indonesian phrasebook,

called Practical Dialogues.

But I've got to tell you, these are not...

These are not practical in any way.

HE SIGHS Or not even dialogues, a lot of them.

It just feels like you're in some weird kind of,

sort of, almost like a Brechtian sort of parallel universe.

The conversation seemed loaded with something else.

This one just says, "I need some fresh fruit."

But it seems there's...

There's something else. There's a subtext going on.

"I need some fresh fruit." "You seem to like fruit."

"I like fruit very much."

"What kind of fruit do you like?"

"Apples."

"What about bananas?"

"Yes."

Some of them feel like you're in a psychodrama.

"Tell me why you didn't say hello to Lucy yesterday."

"Because I didn't want to."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Did she annoy you?" "No."

"You are hiding something."

I just came in for toothpaste.

This one's called It Burns.

All right?

"What does fire do?"

"It burns."

"What catches fire?"

"Paper, hair, cotton."

"What is a fire alarm?"

"An apparatus for making know the outbreak of fire."

"Is fire destructive?"

"When fire is angry, it can destroy."

OK, cheers. Er...

This is perhaps my favourite. "What is yoga?" All right?

There's no preamble, like, "Are you into fitness?

"Do you like fitness?" No. Just that. "What is yoga?"

You imagine you're sitting on a plane

and the person sitting next to you just turns to you randomly

and says to you, "What is yoga?"

You'd be pushing the button, wouldn't you?

Like, ding, ding, ding, ding! "Help! There's a nutter."

And... But in this world, people are very obliging.

"What is yoga?"

"It is a Hindu system of meditation and self-control."

"What it is intended for?"

"To produce mystical experience

"and the union of the individual soul with the universal spirit."

"Is your sister still in India?"

APPLAUSE

Makes no sense. Right...

So, when... HE CHUCKLES

So, when I'm playing music, right, I like to play in the minor key.

The minor key... More powerful than the major key...

The major key - too eager to please.

♪ Like me, like me, like me, like me I'm the major key. ♪

No. Back off, all right?

The minor key... Much more evocative.

Some of the world's greatest music - written in the minor key.

Fur Elise, A minor.

PLAYS FUR ELISE

In the major key, not so much.

PLAYS JAUNTY FUR ELISE

No. I mean, it just... CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It sounds like a Bavarian milking song. Now...

You know, songs that are upbeat in their lyric

tend to be accompanied by a major key, like...

MERRILY: # You are my sunshine My only sunshine... ♪

No. I want to hear it in the minor key, sung with contempt.

GLOOMILY: # You make me happy when skies are grey

♪ You'll never know, dear How much I love you... ♪

Now, I know what you're thinking.

"Why don't you sing it in German, Bill?"

All right, then.

♪ Du bist mein Sonnenschein

♪ Mein einziger Sonnenschein... ♪

Right, everybody join in!

♪ Du m... # All right?

♪ Du machst mich glucklich

♪ Wenn der Himmel grau ist AUDIENCE CLAPS IN TIME

♪ Du wirst niemals wissen

♪ Wie sehr ich dich liebe

♪ Bitte nimm meinen Sonnenschein nicht weg. ♪

Jawohl!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Ausgezeichnet!

Do we have some German speakers here tonight?

Bisschen Deutsch, ja?

CHEERING

Wow. Way more German than I thought.

What a reaction to that.

I should have been doing it in German from the beginning.

All right, then. I'm going to do that.

I'm going to start the show again and see how far I get.

So, here we go. Let's German it up a bit.

DRUM ROLLS Willkommen, Bill Bailey!

BAVARIAN MUSIC PLAYS

CHEERING

AUDIENCE CLAPS IN TIME

Jawohl! Willkommen! Ich heisse Bill Bailey.

Ich habe eine Wunderbin...

ANGELIC CHOIR

Ja.

Und ein Reichsministerrandomization.

BORIS JOHNSON: Spondylus. Oh. Er...

Ja! Ich fur ein innuendoscopy haben gehen machen.

Er sagt, "Wo willst du es?" Ja.

STRUGGLES: "Du... du willst..."

So...

Ich habe ein Theremin, ja?

THEREMIN NOTE PLAYS Ja. Man kann mit dem Kopf spielen.

Ja? THEREMIN NOTE PLAYS

Mit dem Kopf! HE WHEEZES WITH LAUGHTER

Ich habe ein bisschen Musikalkomedie.

SLIDE WHISTLE NOTE PLAYS Wahey! Woo-pla!

Was ist Joga?

Das rotes Paradiesvogel

das... das wohnt auf dem Kopf von der Dschungelbaum...

...und... und...

...und jedes Morgens Herr Vogel

macht einen spezial Sextanz. Zu...

...treffen mit Fraulein Vogel.

"Ooh, Herr Vogel! Du hast ein sextanz gemacht..."

"Ja. Ich will einen Sextanz machen, ja!. Hier, komm hier."

TECHNO MUSIC PLAYS

♪ Eins

♪ Zwei

♪ Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf...

♪ Sex mit dem vogel Sex mit dem vogel

♪ Sex hier, sex hier

♪ Auf dem Dschungelbaum

♪ Wo ist der vogel? Wo ist der vogel?

♪ Sex hier, sex hier

♪ Das ist die Vogeltanz! ♪

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Aber, man muss in einem Schlinge gehoben

zu sehen... zu sehen der Tanz,

und ich kann nicht in die Schlinge gehen.

Ich habe ein problem mit meinem arsch.

Mein arschenwacker ist kaputt.

Right, that's enough of that.

OK. Right.

So... APPLAUSE

Now, the American national anthem. Very bold, very stirring music.

MUSIC: The Star Spangled Banner

You know, it's kind of like...

Gives you very stirring feelings of pride and nationalism.

But if you play it in the minor key, it changes it completely.

HE PLAYS THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER

Makes it sound a bit Russian.

So I'm just...

...#JustSaying, right...

I love America, though.

I'd love to be in one of those great big American

kind of action franchises.

I love Jason Bourne as well.

My favourite action hero.

Oh! He's fantastic.

None of Bond's silly gadgets.

Bourne, he improvises, doesn't he?

You at him with a knife, he'll stick a pen through your hand.

You try and attack him,

he'll put a hole punch through the fleshy part of your upper arm.

Ooh! That's got to sting.

Stationery, that's his weapon of choice.

You corner him in a Ryman's, you've got no chance.

"He's laminated my hand! A-a-argh!"

Staple your eyebrows to the back of your neck.

He's a demon.

Jason Statham. Oh, he's another one.

I love Jason Statham.

The way he moves.

He always moves in one plane.

He just moves side to side like that.

He comes out of a building, he comes out sideways,

flips around, and then he moves like that.

"Come on. All right, geezer? All right, geezer?"

You know, he's got a bit of crab DNA in him, I reckon.

I was doing a show once in LA

and this producer came to see me after the show.

And he was very... very sort of, you know, complimentary.

He said, "Great show." He said, "Let's meet and discuss projects."

I was like, "OK...let's not blow it, Bill. Come on.

"You know, just try not to...

"..try not to be English and mischievous about this.

"Try and play it straight," you know.

But it didn't go very well because we went for lunch

and he said, "Great show."

He said, "Look, I don't want to blow smoke up your ass."

And I said... I was nervous.

So I went, "Oh, thank goodness for that...

HE WHEEZES WITH LAUGHTER

"Yeah, that sounds disgusting." HE WHEEZES WITH LAUGHTER

And... but being American,

he took me literally. He went, "No, I'm not going to do that.

"It is not... uh...

"It's just an expression to say that I do not..."

And I was like, "Oh, for God's sake.

"Yes, I know what it... Oh, Christ, I know what it means."

And then I just got annoyed and mischievous

and I just played it straight back.

I said, "Yeah, it'd be very difficult to do, wouldn't it?

"I'd have to stand on a chair or a table or a...

"..a raised plinth and then remove my trousers

"and pants and you...

"..but you wouldn't actually be able to blow

"the smoke up my arse because

"the sphincter's a very, very tight muscle.

"You... The smoke would just sort of diffuse on the buttocks.

"So you'd probably have to get

"a pipe up there or maybe a funnel.

"Work that in and then waft the smoke up

"with a menu or something to hand,

"and that way you would achieve ingress

"of smoke into the rectal area."

And... uh...

...I never saw him again after that. That was it, really.

So...

This is a true story, actually.

The original director of Lord of the Rings...

...was not Peter Jackson.

It was actually Quentin Tarantino.

And I would love to have seen that, just for the opening sequence.

HE PLAYS FUNKY TUNE

Freeze frame.

"Bruce Willis as Frodo."

HE PLAYS FUNKY SONG

"Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as the Balrog."

"Samuel L Jackson as Gandalf."

"Somebody get these mother BLEEP orcs...

Out of this goddamn mother BLEEP mother BLEEP

Mother BLEEP ...

BLEEP ...

PROLONGED BLEEP!

"..Mordor!"

Are there any metal fans in?

CROWD WHOOPS

Right.

Just for the avoidance of doubt...

...that is the genre of music,

not the substance.

Some of you are going, "Brass, I like brass, actually, yes."

There's somebody going, "I think you'll find

"that's an alloy. So, uh..."

Know your audience, Bill.

I love metal, right?

If I was allowed to at home,

I'd have amplifiers in every room in my house,

connected wirelessly to my guitar.

And I'd just walk around the house playing metal, around the house.

♪ Walking in the lounge... # Yeah.

♪ Walking through to the kitchen

♪ Do you want some breakfast?

♪ Yes, I do

♪ What do you want?

GROWLS: # Cornflakes

♪ What kind of milk?

♪ Semi-skimmed milk

♪ Pouring on the milk, glug-glug-glug-glug-glug

♪ Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum

♪ Finished

♪ Putting my bowl in the dishwash-e-e-er... ♪

HE CACKLES

♪ Bing-bong! Someone at the door

♪ I'll go

♪ Walking down the hall Walking down the hall

♪ Walking down the hall to the door

♪ Who will it be?

♪ I don't know, I don't know

GROWLS: # I'll have to wait and see

♪ It's a mystery

HE CACKLES

♪ Opening the door... ♪

HE IMITATES CREAKY DOOR

♪ Oh!

♪ It's Jehovah's Witnesses

♪ I got this

♪ I have given my life

GROWLS: # To the life of Satan

♪ The Dark Lord dwells in my eyes

♪ Beelzebub...

♪ They've gone

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much, Royal Opera House.

All right, then, let us play upon the horns.

The tuned Alpine cow horns.

Here they are.

Thank you, chaps. Here we go.

MUSIC: Intro to Dance Of The Little Swans by Tchaikovsky

MUSIC: Dance Of The Little Swans by Tchaikovsky

MUSIC: Swan Lake - Swan Theme by Tchaikovsky

MUSIC: Intro to The Hornpipe from Water Music by George Frideric Handel

MUSIC: The Hornpipe from Water Music by George Frideric Handel

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you!

All right, then.

So, have we got any Irish people in?

SCATTERED CHEERS

There's always a few.

So I'd like to send you out

into the balmy Covent Garden air

with a little Irish reel.

MUSIC CONTINUES

Just take a breather.

MUSIC CONTINUES

LOOP REPEATS

Yeah.

In your face, Ed Sheeran.

MUSIC CONTINUES

HE PLAYS ALONG

HE PLAYS ROUSING TUNE

AUDIENCE CHEER AND CLAP ALONG

AUDIENCE CLAP ALONG

Hup!

Hup!

Hey-y-y-y...

HE QUICKENS TEMPO

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you!

Thank you very much!

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen!

Thanks for coming!

You've been a great crowd. I'm Bill Bailey!

Goodnight!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media