Bill Bailey is back with a string of brand-new shows to add to his current live tour, En Route to Normal. The zinging musical comedy started its tour earlier this year in Dublin before making its way to Stockton Globe on Thursday 12th May.
“How did we get here? How do we find our way through this? And exactly who are we again?” In Bill’s new show, Bill ponders this and other questions that this moment in history has thrown up and tries to see a way through the strange unreality of our new world. Tracing lines through chaotic moments in history, Bill seeks out parallels where human resilience and our ability to endure has got us through times of strife.
He recounts his own experiences of dealing with isolation, including his thoughts on the ‘sounds of lockdown’. This led to a greater appreciation of birdsong and how the natural music of nature in general has inspired many great composers throughout history, and perhaps led to the creation of music itself. Our reliance on technology has inspired Bill himself to create dance remixes of video- calling ringtones.
Sensitivity: Internal Use Sensitivity: Internal Use Through music, songs, and memories, Bill considers our changing priorities, the wonder of dogs, how little things can keep you on track and rhapsodises on his new-found love of skydiving.
A British Comedy Award winner, Bill has enjoyed success on the live stage for many years. In 2001 he took his show Bewilderness to New York for an eight-week run at the Westbeth
Theatre. In 2004 he performed his show Part Troll at over fifty venues around the UK,
culminating in an extended run at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre and in 2007 embarked on a
sold-out UK arena tour with his audio-visual, comedic extravaganza, Tinselworm. He took the show down under during the summer of 2008, touring Australia and New Zealand, before returning to London in December 2008 for a ten-week run of the show at The Gielgud Theatre.
The summer of 2009 saw Bill tour the UK once again with his live show, Bill Bailey Live. Later that same year, following his performances at London’s Royal Albert Hall and the resulting critically acclaimed BBC Two television broadcast, Bill enjoyed a very successful UK tour of his musical comedy show, Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra. Performing alongside some of the UK’s finest orchestras, the show provided fans with the opportunity to see Bill’s surreal comic and musical imagination at its best and was described by The Telegraph as “a glorious achievement,” The Guardian as “sublime hilarity” and Stephen Fry as “wonderfully enjoyable… like driving a Rolls-Royce off-road.”
In 2010 Bill Bailey toured the Scottish Highlands with his live show, Dandelion Mind.
Performing small intimate crowds, he went from playing some of his smallest gigs to one of his biggest, when he played a huge open-air homecoming show at Bristol’s Ashton Gate Stadium in June of that year. This preceded an international tour of Dandelion Mind across Australia and New Zealand and a residency in London’s West End where the show was described by The Times as “a consistently inventive mix of sociopolitics, art history, anthropology and astrophysics, it may well be his best show yet!” At the end of 2011, Bill took Dandelion Mind (Gently Modified) out to the masses with a full tour of the UK, before writing yet another hit show Qualmpeddler, with which he toured Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Latvia, Estonia, The Netherlands and of course the UK, wrapping the tour with a massive gig at London’s Wembley Arena.
Having declined previous requests due to ongoing touring commitments, the pause in live
shows due to the pandemic provided Bill the opportunity to partake in the 2020 series of BBC One’s hit primetime Saturday night entertainment show, Strictly Come Dancing. Joining a cast of names from the world of music, sport and entertainment, Bill donned his dancing shoes and sparkles and against all the odds, was crowned Strictly Champion, lifting the coveted Strictly Glitter ball alongside professional partner Oti Mabuse.
Flash forward to today and in a show whose title Bill had written before we’d even heard of
Covid, En Route to Normal has become not just a funny, heartwarming mix of stories, music
and history, but a personal mission to find our way through these strange times!
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