The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Saturday
The best (and worst) of Bill Bailey
The Strictly Come Dancing winner (and now, cabaret star) on the good, bad and ugly aspects of his life
Bill Bailey (born Mark Robert Bailey), 56, is a comedian, musician and actor. Before winning Strictly Come Dancing in 2020 he was a star on the stand-up circuit, in sitcoms such as Black Books, and in popular game shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You and QI. He lives in London with his wife, Kristin, and their son, Dax, 17.
MY BEST MOMENT ON STRICTLY
My favourite moment was dancing to Rapper’s Delight. It was a significant song in my youth and my upbringing. I got a message from an old school friend who said she could remember me rapping the entire thing – all 15 minutes of it – at a party in the West Country when I was 18!
Another key moment was winning – I never expected that. There I was, the 200-1 outsider at the beginning of the show, in the final. When they announced our names it was one of those moments when everything just stopped. I was absolutely gobsmacked. Maybe men of my age who feel a bit self-conscious about dancing will now feel more confident about going for a lesson because they’ll say: “If Bill can do it, anyone can.”
THE BEST DECISION I EVER MADE
Apart from marrying my wife – that was obviously a very good decision – I think it was when I went ahead with a show at the Edinburgh Festival years ago. It wasn’t going very well. I tried a preview of it and nobody came – just a girlfriend, the techy and the techy’s mate. But I thought, well, I’ll do it anyway. I did a week’s worth of shows and then the venue started to fill up and it was sold out – which was unheard of. I got offered lots of things from it such as an international tour and a DVD deal.
THE BEST THING A FAN HAS SAID TO ME
It was a message on Twitter in lockdown, and it was something really poignant, like: “For an hour I forgot all the sad times and I was able to just laugh.” There is an enormous need in us as humans to have a collective feeling of being part of something. We’ve been denied that for a year and a half now.
THE BEST THING ABOUT BEING A DAD
It keeps you young. Revisiting all of those things from my youth and watching my son, Dax, enjoy them – like teaching him how to get on a bike, or, as he got a bit older, how to ski, how to paddleboard, how to dive. You also end up doing things you wouldn’t have done had you not had a child – for me, that was skydiving. My son wanted to skydive when we were in Australia, but he was 13 at the time and you had to be 16, so we did it together. I loved it! It was brilliant but terrifying. We’ve both done five or six jumps since then.
MY BEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY
I would go off on my own when I was 11 or 12 and cycle around all these little villages in the West Country. That sense of freedom, of discovery and adventure I still retain now in adult life.