Good joker:
Bill Bailey (left) ticked all the boxes to be host of Patriot Brains but the creators of the show were stunned when he accepted the job, as Melenie Parkes finds.
Why Bill Bailey was ideal for Patriot Brains.
The creators of Patriot Brains always had Bill Bailey in mind to host the local trans-Tasman quiz. But it still came as a surprise when the English comedian agreed to referee the series.
“We just got lucky,” says Jarrod Holt from production company the downlow concept, which is also responsible for 7 Days, Hounds and Coverband.
“It’s the first question people ask us – ‘How did you get him?’ And we really don’t know. We just asked and he said yes,” laughs Holt.
“We’re just so very thankful for it. He’s a fantastic arbiter.
“He is just such a charming, erudite, lovely, generous man, and he was just a joy to work with. It was easily one of the most enjoyable professional moments of my life just sitting there on stage with him and watching him do his thing.”
Holt says the idea for Patriot Brains came from wanting to make a show about the things that he and his collaborators found fascinating. “It sounds crazy, but it was a really fun excuse to do paid research in the things that you’re really interested in. “It was just so much fun diving into all these worlds and looking at questions on New Zealand and Australian history and art and sports and poetry. “And all that stuff was just so rich for humour. We found that there was a particular New Zealand and Australian way of doing things that was very entertaining to all of us.” A distinct advantage to making a show like this in New Zealand is that it’s often easier to access witnesses to history – and also the people who made the news themselves. “The research got quite involved where somebody was calling Dave Dobbyn and asking him what song he was playing during the beginning of the Queen Street riots. “It was great to get some of that stuff firsthand.”