October 25, 2025 • 16 mins
UK comedian and actor Bill Bailey is set to start his next tour of New Zealand in the coming days, and he's spoken of his love for the nation.
His brand-new show Vaudevillian kicks off in Queenstown and he's revealed how excited he is to tour the 'beautiful country.
"There's a lot about it that I love...the sort of things New Zealand offers are the sorts of things I would seek out in any country that I have a bit of spare time in."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Now, Bill Bailey has a bit of a love affair
with New Zealand. The English comedian, musician, actor and star
of cult classic Black Books has been a regular to
our shores over the last thirty years, and he's back
his new tour. It's going to thirteen centers. It's called Vaudevillion.
It starts this Wednesday, and I'm very excited to have
Bill Bailey here in the studio. Bill, so lovely to
(00:34):
have you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Welcome, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Do you know what I love about you?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
What's that when you come to.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
New Zealand, you don't just go I'll go to three
main centers and then I'll head to Sunny Australia. You
do the country, You've got all the far flung corners. Indeed,
what is it that you enjoy about that?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Why do you do that? Well, it's I mean simply
because it's a beautiful country and there's a lot about
it that I love him, and it's kind of the
sort of things that New Zealand offers, the sort of
things I would seek out in any country that I
(01:13):
have a bit of spare time in it, that is
getting amongst nature, trying to see some of the bird
life you have here, the amazing flaor and fauna which
is unique to New Zealand endemic in some cases. So
that is a big draw for me, and so every
time I get a spare moment, that's what I'll be
trying to do. But also it's just a very beautiful
(01:33):
country to travel around, and any chance I get, I'll
be out there exploring.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So have you learned to tour well? Have you learned
to tour in a way that, as you say, you
can have a moment and enjoy it rather than going, Okay,
I've got all these stops I have to make and
kind of churn through the work.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Absolutely, yes, I mean that's the thing, you know, because
I still love touring and I love the experience of it.
But yes, I've learned to tour a bit better over
the years and allow time for those kinds of things
as well. So, you know, and you have to get out.
I think that's the key thing with me. Otherwise you
end up in a lot of hotel rooms and you're
(02:09):
stuck indoors a lot of the time. And you can
be you can fall into a bit of a rut
like that, so I always try to get out and
see a bit of where I'm I'm going to be
playing it.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Oh, Maru, I think is a new stop for you
this time? Yeah, it's quite exciting. What do you know
about the place?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, all I've gleaned from it firstly that it's just
it looks like a beautiful place to spend a bit
of time. But there's a steampunk museum, which I'm very
intrigued by because I had a show one year called Steampunk,
so I one of my sort of shows in the
Edinburgh Festival was called steampunk. So I've got a sort
of a bit of an interest in that anyway, So
(02:48):
I'm intrigued to see what that holds in store. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And penguins. Penguins, Yeah, very good place is to eat
and drink, I believe. Beautiful Victorian architecture.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Ah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Limestone building sounds great. You're in for a real treat.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Have you been coming here for thirty years?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yea, indeed it is. Yeah, I first before in Auckland.
I think it was the Comedy Fest probably a back
in ninety six. Or something. So, yes, about thirty audios.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So you do the big venues, but then you do
these small venues as well.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Do you like that connection that you have with an
audience and a small venue, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Very much so. And you often are able to to
have some fantastic interactions in a smaller audience where perhaps
in larger venues you can't quite hear what people are saying,
but in those kinds of size of venue, because I
love to interact with audiences. I mean, I do ask
people questions, I encourage people to get involved, and places
(03:43):
like that, small events, as you mentioned, are perfect for that.
So yeah, I love that. I love to mix it
up a.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Bit because there's nothing that kills a hickel or a
good chat more than you going sorry, I can't hear
you in the back there exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
So you want everyone to hear what people are saying,
and in smaller venues you can.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Do that, and you like that connection with the audience.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Are you know?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Occasionally you see performers get up and you can see
that they get an to a flow and they just
want to do this thing. Yeah, I want to do
this thing and get off the stage. But you've always
enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I always enjoyed that, Yeah, because I think then, well,
for a couple of reasons really, And the first thing
is is that an audience will then see, well, this
is unique to this night. This hasn't happened before, This
interaction hasn't happened before, so we're seeing something that might
not occur in any other venue. And then the other
thing is is that this is very much what and
(04:35):
partly what this new show that I'm trying to to
go to put together. Vaudevillian is very much about that.
It's about audience participations, about audience involvement that was an
integral part of those shows back in the day, and
so it's it's very much that I think that's for me,
the ideal show is where there's a combination of things.
(04:58):
There's some set pieces that that I've worked out, some
routines and stories and anecdotes, but then there's always a
sort of a slight unknown quantity to a show where
you don't quite know where this interaction might lead. But
that makes it fun for me.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Really stimulating for you as well. But you know what
I think I've noticed with crowds at the moment is
we are really enjoying and I think that this is
a post COVID, all working from home kind of thing.
We are so enjoying going out and sharing a communal
experience with other people.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And it's important that we do this, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
It's so important and I do detect that as well.
Post COVID. You know, over the last few years, there's
been a greater appetite I think a marked difference in
the reaction from crowds. Really, people are really enjoying it,
getting even more out of it and relishing the opportunity
to be in a crowd of people sharing and experience
(05:53):
which you can't really replicate in other other way.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Vaudavillion. When I first heard that this was the name
of your show, I did think to myself and in
my mind, a vaudaville show is almost like a variety show.
There's a bit of singing, some sketches, and in a way,
that's what that's what you've actually been doing, that's.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It through my entire career. I sort of finally realized, Oh,
that's it, that's what I am. And in a way
it was quite a I mean, it seems like it
would it would be, but it hasn't. It only occurred
to me in the last year actually, when I finished
(06:32):
touring my last show, and I realized that this is
exactly what vaudeville is. It's a mixture of all these
different things, bringing exotic instruments into a show, a bit
of interaction with the audience, sketches, songs, a bit of dance,
its variety. It's old English music hall combined with a
lot of other things, cabaret and and so it's almost
like I realized, now is the time to just lean
(06:54):
into that and actually say, well, this is this is
exactly what I am and what I do.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So we can expeact you know. Often a show might
if it's a comedy shark might have a particular thing,
but we can you to go anywhere and everywhere with that.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that I loved
since I've been researching the history of vaudeville was that
it's a very old art form. I mean, it became
hugely popular in America and then in the late nineteenth century,
and then of course it was superseded by radio, you know,
(07:28):
and then people just could get entertainment by staying at
home but actually it goes back a long way. It
goes back to the fourteen hundreds in France. That's where
the name comes from, Vaus de Ville, which is a
place in Normandy where you can identify where the first
kind of comic songs became popular, and then it spread
throughout France and then Europe and around the world. And
(07:50):
I just thought that is that's I feel now a
kind of connection almost with the past, with that, like
I've always felt performing, but now even more so. And
so part of the show is very much a little
bit about going back to that point and sort of
almost reconnecting with this the origins of what comedy in
(08:10):
cabaret has become.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's almost like we're thoughtifyed you were, you were thinking
about the present and Ai and the future and Teak
and things like that, and now it's kind of driven.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
You exactly right. It's awful circle. It feels exactly that.
And the fact that actually, as you say, there is
now perhaps even a greater appetite for connecting with other
people and sharing that live experience. You know, so much
of our lives has become very disconnected. You know, we
spend a lot of time indoors we spend in offices,
in cars and on our way to work, we spend
(08:39):
time at home, and the facilities that we have, we're
able to work remotely. We can do all those things.
We cannot have connections with others. So live entertainment has
almost a greater significance now. I think in People's.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Lives bill, how many new instruments did you learn for
this show?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Okay, so I've currently I've currently it's currently five or four,
but and if you include a typewriter as an instrument,
then it's five. So I've got I brought a typewriter
because there's a piece of music which is played on
the typewriter, and it's classic Vaudeville's it's absolutely it could
(09:21):
have been made for it, and it's a piece of
music that was scored for an actual typewriter. And of
course a lot of young people will be looking at
this thing like what the hell is a typewriter? Anyway,
But it's got a rhythmic sound to it. It's like
a percussion instrument in itself, and there's got various different
sounds to it. There's the character returns and then ding,
so it's got this It has a musicality to it.
(09:44):
And I've got an instrument that's called an ektara, which
was given to me by a fan, and it's I mean,
on the face of it, it doesn't look that promising.
It's a one string loot so's it only has one
string and you tune it by squeezing two metal sorry
(10:07):
too wooden sort of struts which contain it in at
the base of it as a soundbox. And it's it's
a it's from the fourteen hundred's, the Indian subcontinent, and
it was used by in devotional music sort of minstrels,
troubadours would play this thing, and I thought, that's exactly
(10:28):
that's exactly what I am. So I need to figure
out how to way of play it because this is
kind of part of what I realize is is what
I really love to tap into, is that that comedy
and cabaret have roots in all sorts of areas of
people's lives. You know that were not necessarily when you know,
(10:49):
you would connect them with entertainment. They were they were yogi's,
they were you know, it was they were priests shaming.
But they they would they would travel around and they
would perform and people would come and they would connect
with them.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So how many instruments I can you play? Now? Do
you haven't?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Do you have a number the most? Sixty odd? Sorry,
sixty three or something, But I'm not playing all of
them in this in this show. Otherwise it would literally
be picking up one are they are they bring? And
then that would that would be the show. So there's
there's there's only a few in this.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Villa arrived instruments have arrived in New I've got to
ask about the animals because we do talk about last
time you were here, we were talking about the zoo.
Oh yeah, how is the zoo going?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Are we adding animals?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
We are ogly zoo we have now we've now paired
a zoo right down because it was getting a bit
out of hand. We had quite a lot of animals,
and there were all animals that, for one reason or
another had been rejected, had been trafficked, or were extraneous
to requirements, and so we had a bit of space
(12:03):
and we had some enclosures in our back garden that
we were able to accommodate them. So once you once
people know that you look after animals, then you're sort
of on the radar of this, and so we would
get calls from people say, we've had two red handed tamarins,
they've been traffic. Can you look after them for a bit. Yes,
(12:25):
we've got a couple of armadillos, can you look after them. Yes,
we've got some giant chickens, giant rabbits, partridges, We've got
a couple of hummingbirds. And so at one point we
were at full capacity and it was quite a lot
of work and over the last few years, I mean,
I'm busy away in working and we needed sort of
(12:48):
to help. We had a couple of volunteers from London
Zoo came and helped out. But it was getting to
the point where I kept I come and open the door,
and I would just I'd be fearful to open the door.
You know what's going to greet me. Lizards looking at
me and they're like, you know, sheet we go bars.
We were off at a wallaby at one point because
(13:08):
this wallaby was extraneous to London Zoo's needs, and they
said do you want a wallaby? And I said, I'd
love a wallaby, but he's just going to get out,
you know, he'll be down the high street, and then
we'll be on the news.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
And then you know one that I'm presuming you no
longer have the Malay fighting cocks.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
No, the Malay fighting cocks. They had to go. They
had to go. The Cockrell he had to go because
he was out of control. I mean, he hated me.
He just turned against me and he would double ninja
kick me on the back of a leg. And he
thought I was I was after his hands and I wasn't.
I wasn't interested in his hands, but he got into
his head that I was trying to take them off him.
(13:48):
Oh he hated me, Oh my word. He would he
would lunge at me and and he would hide in
the bushes in the back garden and wait till I
was crossing the garden. And then I could hear him
running behind me and he would rake the back of
my legs. He was just he was vicious. He had
to go.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
The last thing I want to talk to you about
very quickly is mastercrafts Oh h because I started doing
pottery about a year ago, changed my life. Absolutely love it.
I think we should all do something creative, make something
with our hands. And you've had a TV show where
you've been taking a look. It's kind of traditional craft.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And it was again something which I absolutely love. My
grandfather was a Stonemason and he, you know, he built
a lot of the house that I grew up in.
So there's a sort of but I think generally there
is an ancient culture of making in all human societies.
(14:49):
If you look at every single human settlement around the world,
there'll be items there. They'll be that were not practical,
you know, needles or arrowheads or axes. They were therefore
esthetic use for they would have some other reason. And
it seems like it's a human compunction to make things.
(15:13):
And I think that, as you say, it's it can
be life changing because it's something that we are compelled
to do, and yet our modern lives almost restrict us
from that because everything's so easy to get. You can
buy things, consume things quite easily. Know, you have to
make things. Making is not now for necessity, it's just
(15:36):
furrey for pleasure. But actually, when you start making things,
it taps into this ancient desire to make things that
all humans have, and it's immensely satisfying, and that, to
me was one of the great pleasures of making That show.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, no, I wouldn't say that any of my pottery
his function or form, but I'd love the process and
it doesn't matter. Bill Bailey, thank you so much for
popping in Lovely to catch up with you. Enjoy your tour.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Thank you very much, And.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
If you're keen to see Belle while he's here, he's
got thirteen shows. His Boordavillion tour starts in Queenstown this Wednesday.
Tickets are on sale now. For more information, head to
Bohm Presents dot com.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to News Talks at b from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Now, Bill Bailey has a bit of a love affair
with New Zealand. The English comedian, musician, actor and star
of cult classic Black Books has been a regular to
our shores over the last thirty years, and he's back
his new tour. It's going to thirteen centers. It's called Vaudevillion.
It starts this Wednesday, and I'm very excited to have
Bill Bailey here in the studio. Bill, so lovely to
(00:34):
have you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Welcome, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Do you know what I love about you?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
What's that when you come to.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
New Zealand, you don't just go I'll go to three
main centers and then I'll head to Sunny Australia. You
do the country, You've got all the far flung corners. Indeed,
what is it that you enjoy about that?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Why do you do that? Well, it's I mean simply
because it's a beautiful country and there's a lot about
it that I love him, and it's kind of the
sort of things that New Zealand offers, the sort of
things I would seek out in any country that I
(01:13):
have a bit of spare time in it, that is
getting amongst nature, trying to see some of the bird
life you have here, the amazing flaor and fauna which
is unique to New Zealand endemic in some cases. So
that is a big draw for me, and so every
time I get a spare moment, that's what I'll be
trying to do. But also it's just a very beautiful
(01:33):
country to travel around, and any chance I get, I'll
be out there exploring.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So have you learned to tour well? Have you learned
to tour in a way that, as you say, you
can have a moment and enjoy it rather than going, Okay,
I've got all these stops I have to make and
kind of churn through the work.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Absolutely, yes, I mean that's the thing, you know, because
I still love touring and I love the experience of it.
But yes, I've learned to tour a bit better over
the years and allow time for those kinds of things
as well. So, you know, and you have to get out.
I think that's the key thing with me. Otherwise you
end up in a lot of hotel rooms and you're
(02:09):
stuck indoors a lot of the time. And you can
be you can fall into a bit of a rut
like that, so I always try to get out and
see a bit of where I'm I'm going to be
playing it.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Oh, Maru, I think is a new stop for you
this time? Yeah, it's quite exciting. What do you know
about the place?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Well, all I've gleaned from it firstly that it's just
it looks like a beautiful place to spend a bit
of time. But there's a steampunk museum, which I'm very
intrigued by because I had a show one year called Steampunk,
so I one of my sort of shows in the
Edinburgh Festival was called steampunk. So I've got a sort
of a bit of an interest in that anyway, So
(02:48):
I'm intrigued to see what that holds in store. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And penguins. Penguins, Yeah, very good place is to eat
and drink, I believe. Beautiful Victorian architecture.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Ah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Limestone building sounds great. You're in for a real treat.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I think.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Have you been coming here for thirty years?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yea, indeed it is. Yeah, I first before in Auckland.
I think it was the Comedy Fest probably a back
in ninety six. Or something. So, yes, about thirty audios.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So you do the big venues, but then you do
these small venues as well.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Do you like that connection that you have with an
audience and a small venue, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Very much so. And you often are able to to
have some fantastic interactions in a smaller audience where perhaps
in larger venues you can't quite hear what people are saying,
but in those kinds of size of venue, because I
love to interact with audiences. I mean, I do ask
people questions, I encourage people to get involved, and places
(03:43):
like that, small events, as you mentioned, are perfect for that.
So yeah, I love that. I love to mix it
up a.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Bit because there's nothing that kills a hickel or a
good chat more than you going sorry, I can't hear
you in the back there exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
So you want everyone to hear what people are saying,
and in smaller venues you can.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Do that, and you like that connection with the audience.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Are you know?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Occasionally you see performers get up and you can see
that they get an to a flow and they just
want to do this thing. Yeah, I want to do
this thing and get off the stage. But you've always
enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I always enjoyed that, Yeah, because I think then, well,
for a couple of reasons really, And the first thing
is is that an audience will then see, well, this
is unique to this night. This hasn't happened before, This
interaction hasn't happened before, so we're seeing something that might
not occur in any other venue. And then the other
thing is is that this is very much what and
(04:35):
partly what this new show that I'm trying to to
go to put together. Vaudevillian is very much about that.
It's about audience participations, about audience involvement that was an
integral part of those shows back in the day, and
so it's it's very much that I think that's for me,
the ideal show is where there's a combination of things.
(04:58):
There's some set pieces that that I've worked out, some
routines and stories and anecdotes, but then there's always a
sort of a slight unknown quantity to a show where
you don't quite know where this interaction might lead. But
that makes it fun for me.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Really stimulating for you as well. But you know what
I think I've noticed with crowds at the moment is
we are really enjoying and I think that this is
a post COVID, all working from home kind of thing.
We are so enjoying going out and sharing a communal
experience with other people.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And it's important that we do this, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
It's so important and I do detect that as well.
Post COVID. You know, over the last few years, there's
been a greater appetite I think a marked difference in
the reaction from crowds. Really, people are really enjoying it,
getting even more out of it and relishing the opportunity
to be in a crowd of people sharing and experience
(05:53):
which you can't really replicate in other other way.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Vaudavillion. When I first heard that this was the name
of your show, I did think to myself and in
my mind, a vaudaville show is almost like a variety show.
There's a bit of singing, some sketches, and in a way,
that's what that's what you've actually been doing, that's.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It through my entire career. I sort of finally realized, Oh,
that's it, that's what I am. And in a way
it was quite a I mean, it seems like it
would it would be, but it hasn't. It only occurred
to me in the last year actually, when I finished
(06:32):
touring my last show, and I realized that this is
exactly what vaudeville is. It's a mixture of all these
different things, bringing exotic instruments into a show, a bit
of interaction with the audience, sketches, songs, a bit of dance,
its variety. It's old English music hall combined with a
lot of other things, cabaret and and so it's almost
like I realized, now is the time to just lean
(06:54):
into that and actually say, well, this is this is
exactly what I am and what I do.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So we can expeact you know. Often a show might
if it's a comedy shark might have a particular thing,
but we can you to go anywhere and everywhere with that.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that I loved
since I've been researching the history of vaudeville was that
it's a very old art form. I mean, it became
hugely popular in America and then in the late nineteenth century,
and then of course it was superseded by radio, you know,
(07:28):
and then people just could get entertainment by staying at
home but actually it goes back a long way. It
goes back to the fourteen hundreds in France. That's where
the name comes from, Vaus de Ville, which is a
place in Normandy where you can identify where the first
kind of comic songs became popular, and then it spread
throughout France and then Europe and around the world. And
(07:50):
I just thought that is that's I feel now a
kind of connection almost with the past, with that, like
I've always felt performing, but now even more so. And
so part of the show is very much a little
bit about going back to that point and sort of
almost reconnecting with this the origins of what comedy in
(08:10):
cabaret has become.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's almost like we're thoughtifyed you were, you were thinking
about the present and Ai and the future and Teak
and things like that, and now it's kind of driven.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
You exactly right. It's awful circle. It feels exactly that.
And the fact that actually, as you say, there is
now perhaps even a greater appetite for connecting with other
people and sharing that live experience. You know, so much
of our lives has become very disconnected. You know, we
spend a lot of time indoors we spend in offices,
in cars and on our way to work, we spend
(08:39):
time at home, and the facilities that we have, we're
able to work remotely. We can do all those things.
We cannot have connections with others. So live entertainment has
almost a greater significance now. I think in People's.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Lives bill, how many new instruments did you learn for
this show?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Okay, so I've currently I've currently it's currently five or four,
but and if you include a typewriter as an instrument,
then it's five. So I've got I brought a typewriter
because there's a piece of music which is played on
the typewriter, and it's classic Vaudeville's it's absolutely it could
(09:21):
have been made for it, and it's a piece of
music that was scored for an actual typewriter. And of
course a lot of young people will be looking at
this thing like what the hell is a typewriter? Anyway,
But it's got a rhythmic sound to it. It's like
a percussion instrument in itself, and there's got various different
sounds to it. There's the character returns and then ding,
so it's got this It has a musicality to it.
(09:44):
And I've got an instrument that's called an ektara, which
was given to me by a fan, and it's I mean,
on the face of it, it doesn't look that promising.
It's a one string loot so's it only has one
string and you tune it by squeezing two metal sorry
(10:07):
too wooden sort of struts which contain it in at
the base of it as a soundbox. And it's it's
a it's from the fourteen hundred's, the Indian subcontinent, and
it was used by in devotional music sort of minstrels,
troubadours would play this thing, and I thought, that's exactly
(10:28):
that's exactly what I am. So I need to figure
out how to way of play it because this is
kind of part of what I realize is is what
I really love to tap into, is that that comedy
and cabaret have roots in all sorts of areas of
people's lives. You know that were not necessarily when you know,
(10:49):
you would connect them with entertainment. They were they were yogi's,
they were you know, it was they were priests shaming.
But they they would they would travel around and they
would perform and people would come and they would connect
with them.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So how many instruments I can you play? Now? Do
you haven't?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Do you have a number the most? Sixty odd? Sorry,
sixty three or something, But I'm not playing all of
them in this in this show. Otherwise it would literally
be picking up one are they are they bring? And
then that would that would be the show. So there's
there's there's only a few in this.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Villa arrived instruments have arrived in New I've got to
ask about the animals because we do talk about last
time you were here, we were talking about the zoo.
Oh yeah, how is the zoo going?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Are we adding animals?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
We are ogly zoo we have now we've now paired
a zoo right down because it was getting a bit
out of hand. We had quite a lot of animals,
and there were all animals that, for one reason or
another had been rejected, had been trafficked, or were extraneous
to requirements, and so we had a bit of space
(12:03):
and we had some enclosures in our back garden that
we were able to accommodate them. So once you once
people know that you look after animals, then you're sort
of on the radar of this, and so we would
get calls from people say, we've had two red handed tamarins,
they've been traffic. Can you look after them for a bit. Yes,
(12:25):
we've got a couple of armadillos, can you look after them. Yes,
we've got some giant chickens, giant rabbits, partridges, We've got
a couple of hummingbirds. And so at one point we
were at full capacity and it was quite a lot
of work and over the last few years, I mean,
I'm busy away in working and we needed sort of
(12:48):
to help. We had a couple of volunteers from London
Zoo came and helped out. But it was getting to
the point where I kept I come and open the door,
and I would just I'd be fearful to open the door.
You know what's going to greet me. Lizards looking at
me and they're like, you know, sheet we go bars.
We were off at a wallaby at one point because
(13:08):
this wallaby was extraneous to London Zoo's needs, and they
said do you want a wallaby? And I said, I'd
love a wallaby, but he's just going to get out,
you know, he'll be down the high street, and then
we'll be on the news.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
And then you know one that I'm presuming you no
longer have the Malay fighting cocks.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
No, the Malay fighting cocks. They had to go. They
had to go. The Cockrell he had to go because
he was out of control. I mean, he hated me.
He just turned against me and he would double ninja
kick me on the back of a leg. And he
thought I was I was after his hands and I wasn't.
I wasn't interested in his hands, but he got into
his head that I was trying to take them off him.
(13:48):
Oh he hated me, Oh my word. He would he
would lunge at me and and he would hide in
the bushes in the back garden and wait till I
was crossing the garden. And then I could hear him
running behind me and he would rake the back of
my legs. He was just he was vicious. He had
to go.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
The last thing I want to talk to you about
very quickly is mastercrafts Oh h because I started doing
pottery about a year ago, changed my life. Absolutely love it.
I think we should all do something creative, make something
with our hands. And you've had a TV show where
you've been taking a look. It's kind of traditional craft.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And it was again something which I absolutely love. My
grandfather was a Stonemason and he, you know, he built
a lot of the house that I grew up in.
So there's a sort of but I think generally there
is an ancient culture of making in all human societies.
(14:49):
If you look at every single human settlement around the world,
there'll be items there. They'll be that were not practical,
you know, needles or arrowheads or axes. They were therefore
esthetic use for they would have some other reason. And
it seems like it's a human compunction to make things.
(15:13):
And I think that, as you say, it's it can
be life changing because it's something that we are compelled
to do, and yet our modern lives almost restrict us
from that because everything's so easy to get. You can
buy things, consume things quite easily. Know, you have to
make things. Making is not now for necessity, it's just
(15:36):
furrey for pleasure. But actually, when you start making things,
it taps into this ancient desire to make things that
all humans have, and it's immensely satisfying, and that, to
me was one of the great pleasures of making That show.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, no, I wouldn't say that any of my pottery
his function or form, but I'd love the process and
it doesn't matter. Bill Bailey, thank you so much for
popping in Lovely to catch up with you. Enjoy your tour.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Thank you very much, And.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
If you're keen to see Belle while he's here, he's
got thirteen shows. His Boordavillion tour starts in Queenstown this Wednesday.
Tickets are on sale now. For more information, head to
Bohm Presents dot com.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to News Talks at b from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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