The Scotsman

Connolly to present tribute to painter

- By STUART MACDONALD

Sir Billy Connolly is to return to television screens to front an arts programme about one of his favourite painters.

The comedian, who is battling Parkinson’s disease, has just finished filming a documentar­y for Sky Arts in which he explored the background of a painting by Sir Stanley Spencer.

In Tate Britain’s Great British Art Walks, celebritie­s choose a painting in Tate Britain and then an episode is filmed on the landscape that inspired it.

Filming in Cookham, Berkshire, began in November after Sir Billy selected Spencer’s The Resurrecti­on, Cookham.

Sir Billy, 75, became a fan after seeing Spencer’s series of paintings depicting life in Scottish shipyards. He worked as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards before finding fame as a comic.

Mike Reilly, who directed the Sky Arts show, said: “It has been delightful for us looking for elements of the paradise Spencer saw in Cookham. You play at being Stanley and start looking for angels down alleyways.”

Sir Billy, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease five years ago, recently moved from New York to Florida as his doctors had advised him to live in a warmer climate. He recently revealed how continuing to work helped him cope with the symptoms.

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