Ladies and gentleman, will you please welcome Billy Connolly?
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APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Who discovered we could get milk from cows?
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And what did they think he was doing at the time?
LAUGHTER
Billy Connolly...
..he stands there for three hours, and you don't stop laughing.
Help! Help!
There's stuff coming out my willy.
Fearless, utterly fearless.
He can get away with anything, can't he?
My advice to you, if you want to lose a bit of weight,
don't eat anything that comes in a bucket.
Billy is the one and he is the only.
Billy doesn't fit any kind of label regarding what a comedian is.
You Billy Connolly? Aye.
How you doing?
There is no sentence that could do him justice.
I don't think any would argue with me saying
Billy Connolly is Scottish.
A total twat. Oh, no, did I say that?
He is an enigma.
I love him.
He is everything I wanna be.
The world would be a better place...
I wanna be a big, tall...
..if I was in charge.
..white Scotsman.
Do you feel beautiful?
I'm fabulous.
I'm come over all fabulous.
Hello.
Hello, hello.
Thank you very much.
Jesus, what a welcome, thanks very much.
I've done my stand-up. I did it for 50 years.
I did it quite well.
And it's time to stop.
Tonight, you may find that you say the word "fuck"
a little more than you used to.
Where before, you would go, "Taxi!
"Argh! They never to seem to see me.
"I seem to be bloody invisible or something."
Tonight, you might find you go, "Taxi! Oh, fuck you!"
Don't worry about it. It goes away.
I'm the one who's going to hell, you were only watching.
My illness, my Parkinson's Disease, has rendered me different.
You're only doing that cos I'm not well.
LAUGHTER
It would either mean renewing what I do
and doing something else,
or give up what I did, and that's what I've done.
The fact that Billy's not gonna do stand-up any more,
if anyone complains about that...
He's done a lot for us. He's given a lot.
# When the sun beats down And burns the tar up on the roof. #
I don't imagine that he's being sentimental or mawkish about it.
And he has delivered the catalogue, the content, the opus.
We'll just have to look at all his old stuff.
There's so much material out there, that he'll be ever-present, I think.
Did your parents ask you to have clean underwear,
in case you were in an accident?
Can you imagine, you were in an accident
and your father goes to see you in the hospital,
"How's my boy?"
"Oh, Mr Connolly, he's in a terrible state.
"He's just been hit by a double-decker bus, you know.
"He's in intensive care.
"I don't even know if I should let you in to see him.
"Incidentally, his underwear was a fucking disgrace."
So would yours be,
if you saw a big fucking bus coming towards you!
For Christ's sake.
Billy Connolly's fan base is absolutely everybody,
which is unheard of.
He knows what's on your mind,
and he's going to tell you what's on your mind.
And it's gonna be funny.
He's got such a naughty twinkle, Billy.
And it is that infectious love of life that, I think,
is the reason why everyone warms to him.
Never trust a man who,
when left alone in the room with a tea cosy, doesn't try it on.
There's no-one like him. He's a raconteur.
He doesn't rely on jokes.
He relies on his brilliant observation.
A scrotum is an ugly piece of stuff.
It's like a hairy brain.
It's just everyday life he's talking about.
I thought, "No wonder they keep it tucked away in a corner."
It's a design fault.
And I always imagine, when bodies were being designed,
that happened, the fault.
"Er, God?" "What is it?"
"I've got a lot of elbow skin left. What are we going to do with it?"
"Make wee bags.
"We'll put the balls in them.
"Saves them carrying them around in their hand."
But it didn't work, did it?
Men just love it.
Some more than others. Italian men do it all...
They seem to find a constant need for adjustment, you know?
And it's like lightning. It's barely noticeable at all.
Italian waiters, "So, that's two antipasta, two soup.
"Oh, and one, did you want the pate?
"That's fine, that's pate. Now, what about main course?"
A lot of it's to do with the accuracy of his observation,
not just about how we speak and behave, but physically.
There must be a tendon connected to this cheek.
It's so pitch-perfect,
and yet exaggerated to just the right level,
that you immediately... it's instantly funny.
Do you ever eat Mexican food?
It's the weirdest food in the world.
No matter what you order, the same fucking thing arrives.
The only difference is how it's folded.
Excuse me, I ordered tortillas. I seem to have fucking burritos.
"Oh, no problem, sir.
"There you go."
I got the honour of working with him on a film called Quartet.
If there was a long time in between takes, he'd tell a joke
and everybody would be roaring laughing.
It was like getting a private concert from him.
Why do I like to make people laugh? Because it's a jolly thing.
It's good for you and it's good for them.
It's a dynamite thing to be able to do,
to get a laugh out of someone.
Billy's human, and the great thing about Billy is,
it's not like watching a star doing an act.
It's like watching your mate go on stage
and make you piss yourself with laughter.
Apparently, women need to feel loved to have sex.
And men need to have sex to feel loved.
We're fucked from square one.
You're in his family when you're in the audience.
And he's in yours.
No matter how many hundreds or thousands of people are out there,
it's as if you're sitting at the dinner table with him.
If I do it right, they'll feel good.
And if they feel good, I'll feel good.
There's nothing complicated about it.
Which routine of yours, Billy, do you remember the most fondly?
I think it might be The Wildebeest.
It doesn't sound funny when you're explaining it,
but when you put it together and present it, it works.
I'm not as young as I was.
None of us are.
But one of the disconcerting signs I've found recently...
..is shouting at the television.
That is my favourite sketch ever.
It was a thing about wildebeests, wildebeest.
He makes almost this pub scene with all these characters.
You immediately know who he's becoming
with every little flicker.
"Do you hear a lion?
"I thought I heard a lion there.
"Just got that liony kind of feel about the place, you know?"
And there's a particularly stupid wildebeest about four back,
and he goes, "Did you say lion? I've never seen a lion.
"What are they like?
"I heard they were beige. Is that right? Are they beige?
"Camel hair kind of colour?"
He said, "Hey, you, eat the fucking grass,
"and shut up and do as you're told."
"Excuse me for being fucking born, by the way.
"Ask him a question about a lion,
"you get a mouthful of fucking abuse."
Meanwhile, it cuts back to the male lions,
they're all lying under a tree, scratching themselves,
playing cards, you know, smoking.
And then it cuts back to the female lions.
They're now about 6ft from the wildebeest.
And the leader one's sneaking up, doing that shoulder number.
"Agnes!
"Agnes. Agnes.
"Agnes!"
HE MOUTHS INSTRUCTIONS
"Rargh! Fucking lion!"
"Where? Where's the fucking lion?"
Bang! Boof! It's on the ground, they've split it open.
Their heads in its ribcage.
There's lungs and stomachs flying out, blood everywhere.
His back legs still trying to run.
And there's a wildebeest standing, watching them doing it.
"Oh, look at them, eating that thing."
I'm screaming at the telly, "Run, you fucking idiot!"
If they look up, you're fucking history.
Do you see that dust?
That's every fucking wildebeest in Africa!
Run after them! They know something you don't!
And I've come to the conclusion
that wildebeest don't know they're wildebeest,
for there are no mirrors in the Serengeti Plain.
You can be anything you like.
You ask a wildebeest, "Are you a wildebeest?"
"Oh, fuck, are you kidding?
"Wildebeest, that'll be right (!)
"I'm one of them stripy things over there.
"Too fucking right, oh, aye.
"One of them lions looks up, I'll just fucking fly away."
He's a brilliant actor, Billy. He really is.
I don't think you can be that brilliant at comedy
unless you're a great actor.
The long stories are great,
because they're lovely for melding the audience to you.
'As you go through the story,'
you've got punchlines all over the place and funny words.
A life comes over the audience,
because the ultimate thing to do is to make them one unit,
thinking the same.
You just feel great.
It's like singing a song and they all join in.
Thanks.
Billy, I've heard that you think Robert De Niro
is the best actor in the world.
CHUCKLES Why?
God, I love him.
Billy started out as a welder.
And he made his living, or tried to make his living at that.
He had a pretty good voice
and he was able to become a part of a band.
He would sometimes just say a couple of things,
and the audience started to realise that he was funny.
# Away in the forest A bluebird was sleeping
# Where only the coyote calls... # STRING SNAPS
CHUCKLES
Well, that's fucked that one, hasn't it?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Even at the beginning, he had that gene of,
"Nothing's gonna faze me. I'm gonna get through this."
And that's probably a Glasgow ex-welder thing.
If you worked in the docks,
there's not gonna be very much that scares you.
Gimme the guitar, Billy. I'm OK.
I'm doing a bit of posing.
He had that experience as a musician
to know how to work an audience.
As soon as the cameras stop, you can take the heavy stuff.
Billy was the first person to go into arenas, theatres.
Albert Hall, eh?
Woo-hoo.
He just had the charisma. The hair, the way he looked.
He definitely was the first rock star of comedy.
If you think about the way Billy dresses,
particularly early doors,
you know, the banana feet, the kind of tights,
it's disarming.
MUSIC: 'Back In Black' by AC/DC
'I wore weird stuff,
'because I would be playing in lounge bars in Oswaldtwistle
'and I would arrive in my denim stuff'
and they would say, "Has the guest arrived yet?"
'I thought, "I'm gonna dress so as they know it's me when I walk in."
'And that was the way I got my sort of image.
'I became this loud guy from Scotland,'
and it worked.
I feel like I first became aware of Billy Connolly
through that LWT An Audience With... special.
APPLAUSE STOPS
OTHER AUDIENCE APPLAUDS
APPLAUSE STOPS
I can remember sitting very close to the television
and watching him in that black and white shirt,
and his name up in lights.
And all famous people from that time sat in the audience.
So, tonight, if you suck, they come in.
APPLAUSE
APPLAUSE STOPS
I just felt like it was a kind of alchemy,
a kind of magic that he was performing there.
There are many, many highlights in that Audience With...
But the king and queen of routines is the incontinence pants.
It comes out of that page in the Daily Mirror...
..where they sell all the weird stuff.
I used to find it really funny, what was on sale.
Incontinence knickers.
There's always too many incontinence knickers.
I should imagine they were, like, a nappy... with a pad in them.
But I made it like plus fours, to make it funny.
Young people are incontinent too. I mean, it strikes at all ages.
Suppose this young, trendy guy, he sees the advert.
"Right, that'll do me.
"Give us a pair of them.
"Give us a bit of that.
"That's the very fellows for me!
"My see-through plus fours."
Then get the trendy baggy trousers on,
and off to the discotheque, giving it a bit of that, yeah.
Aye. "Yeah, how you're doing? What's your sign?
"Sagittarius? Oh, aye."
Psssh!
Cares not a jot.
Psssh!
# Saddle up and ride your pony # Saddle up and ride your... #
Psssh!
"What's happening later? Yeah?"
Psssh!
There's seven gallons down each leg.
"I'll take...
"..I'll take you home in a minute.
"I'll just go and empty my underwear."
I cried with laughter, and then it was over.
And then he said, "Thank you."
And I just thought, "Well, who does that?"
It was a joy to do. And the people, to see them crying like that,
it's such a privilege.
I have to say, the other thing which is famous in my family is...
# Harry hooo... #
..Glaswegians singing.
I used to go to parties and listen to these men singing.
For years, I didn't know it was English.
# Harry hooo
# Harry loves you very much...
HOLDS NOTE
# Shada-bo, shooda-bee! #
My family do this.
My sister will just start singing that over dinner.
My brother will be on the phone, he'll be FaceTiming me,
and starting singing. D'you have a few drinks last night?
# Shada-bo! #
And that's from Billy Connolly.
You get a huge carry-out first.
You get a dozen beers and a half bottle of whisky.
And then you go along these tenement streets, listening.
And them from a window, you hear...
# Harry ho... #
I think the comedian, like the poet,
plays an incredibly important role in society.
He should be able to see things
'that the average guy in the street can't see.'
He should able to spot the absurdity in something that's just accepted.
He knows what he's talking about, that guy.
I don't think I ever saw that South Bank Show first time around.
That was the year that I met Billy.
He talks so cleverly
and so analytically about artistry, that level of observation.
I might have been surprised to see him talking that way,
because my experience of him in 1979
was that he was this wild and crazy person
who didn't mind a bevvy or ten.
I was in an aeroplane, and I got this magazine.
I turn a page over and there's me.
I thought, "Fuck, it's me."
I'm looking at this article.
"Billy's extraordinary technique."
I thought, "Oh, maybe they know what it is."
"He can leave the subject for days on end, weeks...
"..and always, unerringly,
"comes back to exactly where he left off."
No, I don't. "Quite near" does me.
If I get back to quite near what I was talking about,
that's enough.
As a matter of fact, that's why I never became an airline pilot.
Yeah, you can imagine.
"The plane landed quite near Heathrow."
"Off!
"We're in a ploughed field!" "Did I fucking ask you?"
Billy Connolly, famously, can do two different sets
on two different nights.
And I think you can feel that,
that this is a person that is channelling.
I was gonna talk about something. I've gone astray.
He's making that shit up. Oh, yes!
And that's a rare thing.
That's different from watching Seinfeld, a mathematician.
Billy Connolly, poet.
Oh, oh, wait till you hear this!
Would you fucking...? No, wait a minute.
I don't know how he does that.
He said at one point,
there's actually a voice that he hears in his head
that says, "You'd better say it now,
"because you're gonna forget it in two seconds."
Sorry about that.
Sometimes I see pictures that just fucking crack me up.
Billy doesn't write things down. He doesn't practise.
He doesn't prepare to go on stage and do a three-hour concert
in front of thousands and thousands of people.
What he does is trust that he's going to be funny.
Thoughts come in.
They come doddling into my head when I'm talking about stuff.
I'll say a word that'll remind me of another word,
and that'll remind me of a thing.
And I'll just pull it in and do it.
It's why he gets so nervous before performing,
because he always thinks that that ability to just be funny
without any safety net is going to elude him.
You ever noticed about a Glasgow drunk,
he walks with one leg.
He's usually carrying a fish supper,
which looks as if it weighs about two hundredweight.
I always loved Billy's drunk walks.
They were so brilliantly observed and so accurate.
He's a people watcher, isn't he?
And he's great at physical comedy and becoming characters.
And he's got a chip in his right hand,
which he's trying to stare out.
He's not just dealing with language.
He's recognising that he's a jester.
He's a proper Chaplinesque, demonstrating kind of comedian.
He's doing this one-legged walk and wondering how come
he's knackered and not getting anyplace.
He's an observational stand-up.
He's a mimic. He's a physical comedian.
He's also, actually, a really sharp satirist.
My wife, Pamela, was invited to a dinner,
Christmas, in a huge house in Yorkshire.
One of these houses, when you go in the gate,
you've still got half an hour to go to get to the house.
Like serious dough, super toffs.
The guy who owns the place, he's giving us all a drink.
And I said, "So, what do you do now?"
He said, "Toboggan."
I said, "No, I meant, what do you do for a living?"
He said, "Toboggan."
I said, "Toboggan?" "Yes, toboggan."
As if it was the most normal thing on earth.
"He's a jolly good tobogganist. Keeps his toboggan lovely."
And that's the difference.
It isn't money.
That's the difference between them and us.
Is they think it's all right to be a tobogganist.
Go to the dole and say, "Occupation? Tobogganist."
"What?"
"Tobogganist."
"Erm...
"Hang on a minute, I'll have to see Mr McClafferty about that."
He's over to the supervisor, you know?
"He says he's a tobogganist."
"Tobogganist, you say?"
"Aye."
"Fuck me."
"Maybe he's got a speech impediment or something."
"Aye, that'll be it. Write down tobacconist."
I think Billy's a master of his craft, you know?
No-one better.
I wouldn't know a single stand-up from any background now
whose almost, like, family tree of performance
doesn't go back to Billy Connolly.
He's the only genuine, great stand-up
that's among the true pantheon.
So, what better to aspire to?
He turned it into an art form,
from just, like, a small, silly craft to a proper career.
I'd like to dedicate this award to Billy Connolly.
Ladies and gentlemen, my comedy hero.
When I met him, I was quiet and reverential.
But there was a bit where I looked at my own feet
and then tracked across the floor to Billy Connolly's feet.
I thought, "You're standing on the same stage as him."
Peter Kay, you should have given me that thing.
See that, he dedicated it to me and then took it away.
Bastard.
LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Limelight grabber.
And you put your thing there, put your elbows out and twist round.
MIMICS FART
There's air in there that's been there since 1947.
MIMICS FART
Farts are funny, because it's a funny noise.
MIMICS FART
Amazing!
He'll say things like,
"You love the smell of your own farts,
"but you don't like other peoples."
Well, I thought, "That's true."
MIMICS FART
But it took his head to think that and to dare say it.
Can you imagine, instead of going... MIMICS FART
..what if it went, "Fart"?
It doesn't matter your station in life, you won't survive it.
If you're proposing marriage to a girl,
and you're down on one knee and you says,
"Senga, will you...?" MIMICS FART
Forget it. You're single.
Women can't keep secrets.
No, that's a stupid thing, stupid generalisation.
So, what we'll say tonight is, women could easily keep secrets
if they wanted to, but they don't seem to want to.
Men, on the other hand, can keep secrets,
because men, basically, are sneakier than women.
To make the see-saw work, we need something else here
that women are good at and men aren't very good at.
That keeps the wheel turning,
because every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Everybody knows that.
Yin-yang, the whole shooting match, right?
So, women aren't good at secrets, men are very good.
Women can hold in a fart, men can't.
What are we to learn from this?
If you want a woman to keep a secret,
whisper it up her arse.
A lot of people have got a filter when something comes in their head
and you go, "I can't say that."
But he's not like that.
He just has a thought,
and it can be about subjects
that were, at that time, considered taboo.
In the toilet, lock the door. "Oh, for Christ's sake."
Another wee jobby.
A wee beige jobby.
'It was real.'
It was a British Railways toilet on a train.
It's one of life's huge problems,
which is actually a wee, tiny problem,
but becomes enormous because of the way we regard each other.
You flush and flush with all your might.
Doodle-doodle-doo.
Sometimes, it actually goes under the bit as well.
It hides.
Then just as you go like that... Doodle-doo!
You try battering it to death with paper towels.
"Go away!"
And you can't leave.
You're stuck in there with this bloody thing.
You go to leave, you walk out the door,
and somebody's coming in.
"By the way, that's not mine."
"Oh, really?"
Billy tells the truth.
And the truth, by definition,
is not always in what we call good taste.
Anywhere you're vulnerable, you're funny.
And when your trousers are down, you're vulnerable.
Just recently, I had a colonoscopy,
where they shove a television camera up your arse.
But before you get this thing, you get these laxatives to take.
Now, these aren't your high-fibre, natural product
made from tea tree and badgers' pubic hair.
You know? You know those adverts you get on telly?
"Are you feeling listless?
"What you need's a good shit.
"Go to a friendly chemist and ask for Shit Easy."
Well, it's not that.
This is like NASA.
There isn't a natural thing within a mile of this.
And you take them all at once.
And... be quite near a bathroom.
Till he sort of came on the scene,
people saved that for their private lives,
and then had a routine for the stage.
His private life just walked right on stage and came out.
I'd hardly got the tweeds to my knees,
and my arse was just on its way to the seat.
MIMICS DIARRHOEA
You know... when it's like a hose that nobody's holding?
MIMICS DIARRHOEA
Fucking hell, I'm looking through the wee hole.
Jesus. And then it would stop for a sort of breather, you know?
Your arse is hanging in tatters like this.
We all know that moment of looking between our legs.
We recognise, like, the sort of scatological sounds.
So, when he then says...
I'll be like a walnut when this is finished.
..it's literal hypnosis. I recognise this, I recognise this.
Oh, my God, I could be reduced to a walnut.
He knows which images are inherently funny.
But you can only be that disgusting if people love you,
if you've made people love you,
otherwise it's just absolutely revolting.
Your arse is burning.
You have to put the toilet paper in the fridge.
He somehow is able to turn the very mundane things we do
and go through in life...
Holy macaroni!
..not only into great humour, but with an intimacy and a humanity.
He loves life, and that comes through more than anything.
You know that cuddle thing that women have got?
"Let's just cuddle."
"Oh, OK."
I'll tell you what's wrong with it.
You, your knees get in fine, you know?
You're always behind, your guy's always the one at the back.
The cuddlee, the one who suggested it,
is at the front, because they're the one that gets cuddled.
The one at the back gets fuck all.
He's the cuddler. Right?
And this arm's fine, it goes over here.
But this is a real problem.
So, you can do that.
And none of them is comfortable.
The only one that's comfortable is put it under her and lie on out.
And after a while, it goes grey,
and you can't feel anything in it any more.
And you can't get your head in the right position,
because her hair goes up in your mouth.
And she says, "See, it's nice, isn't it?"
"I wonder what's on TV?"
"Might as well make a move, see what happens."
"Don't, you'll spoil it!"
The pitch of laugher from the audience,
he's maintaining near hysteria for very long periods of time, you know.
Typically, you'll have five minutes, ten minutes, whatever,
of normal, regulated laughter.
Like, the fact that he can hold those waves so long,
I think he can sustain... Excuse me, my dogs come with me.
It's not one of them dogs that wears a special vest
for friendship and companionship,
but he does basically perform that emotional function.
Forgive the problems that he's providing.
But I feel that Billy Connolly would somewhat approve,
particular of what he's about to do, right now. There you go.
Honouring the subject by licking his own genitals.
LAUGHS
What greater tribute can we have for Billy Connolly
than a literal shaggy dog licking his own sexual organs?
God bless you.
That's brilliant.
You appreciate that? Oh, 100%.
I'm with you there.
My dog ate my hearing aid this morning.
$6,000.
I suppose it'll come out in their poo. What do you think?
I know what I'm gonna be doing for the next 24 hours.
Picking through poodle poo.
You know, Scotsmen don't have huge willies.
We have normal-size willies, but we do have enormous pubic hair.
You've probably seen it, you know,
pipe bands, where they cut a slit in the kilt and pull it through.
Billy's background as a boy who grew up in Glasgow,
his family life, a certain level of financial poverty,
all of those things make him the comedian that he is today.
It's been the main influence, Glasgow. Glasgow attitude.
It'll never leave me.
My parents used to have dances while they were hitting me.
We made our own entertainment.
They would hit me in the rhythm of the argument.
"Don't you ever let me see you doing that again!
"Did you hear what I said?
"Don't you ever, ever, ever..."
Billy once said, "I think comedy comes from a very dark place."
And it was true in his life, because his father was physically abusive,
his mother left when he was four years old.
Life is funny if you let it be.
If you're letting the rotten things in your life be funny,
it cures them.
As an example, he said his father would lift him up
and hold up by an arm and whack him with the other hand.
And he would say to him each time...
"Have you had enough?"
What a stupid question!
"Would you like some more of the same?"
I think you're supposed to say...
"..Would a kick in the testicles be out of the question?"
The fact that he can turn this traumatic moment into humour,
even at an early age...
"I can't believe my father asked me this stupid question.
"Have I had enough?
"No, Dad. Keep it up. I love it."
Billy's got a great way of self-deprecating.
We know he's a rock and roll star, he's hung out with royalty,
you know, superstars.
But he evokes this childhood of growing up in Glasgow
and he makes us care.
Aberdeen has a beach, because it's got sand.
There, the similarity to beaches ends.
That's the North Sea, for Christ's sake.
On the horizon, there's oil rigs.
"Now, hear this.
"All employees must wear a survival suit at all times.
"You wouldn't last two minutes if you fell into the North Sea.
"Failure to wear a survival suit will result in instant dismissal."
40 miles away, there's women taking their children's clothes off.
"In you go, you big jessie!"
The stories of everyday life, for example, when he was a kid
and you go into the sea, and he had the woollen swimming wear.
And when he came out, the swimming wear was this big.
We all went through that in the '50s, when were kids.
It was just hilarious.
None of your Speedo, second skin.
This was more your second cardigan.
Big woolly number, you know?
If you were stupid enough to go in above your waist,
it grew like this.
It was absorbent, it could drag you to the bottom!
You had to grab armfuls when you were coming out.
The crotch was a way down here.
People could look in and see your willy, if you had one.
But in the North Sea, you don't.
Tony Wilson of Evening Herald. Evening Herald.
Evening Press, how are you?
So, you don't even have an exciting stage name.
You sound like the boy next door, you know? Yeah, I am, I am.
I first heard of him in the mid-70s,
at my primary school, cos he had been to that school.
And he was famous in Glasgow and probably west coast of Scotland.
And one of his most famous routines was The Last Supper.
He satirised Jesus.
And, like, there weren't very many people doing that.
It wasn't really allowed, but he just did it.
The fact that we were at a Catholic school,
added an extra edge to it.
We were warned by the teachers that we shouldn't be liking
Billy Connolly, because he was blasphemous.
There's a big spread in the papers saying,
"I have nothing against the man, but he is a blasphemer."
I love these words, a blasphemer.
Until he became more famous and the school invited him over
as a sort of famous son, the hypocritical bastards.
I first started to hear about him when we were in Scotland
in the early days of bringing up our family.
And me and Linda and the kids had moved to Scotland
to get out of the craziness that was going on in London.
And we started to hear about this comedian
who was touring around, so it was like,
"Oh, we must try and catch him." You know?
So, we met him.
Billy Connolly's blasphemy of Jesus Christ.
That's why we're protesting as Christians, you see?
There was a vicar or a priest who was following him round on tour
and telling everyone how bad he was,
what a terrible influence and it was disgusting.
To take something that people might be tense about, like religion,
which is a big one,
and to be able to flag up the madnesses of it
is quite brave, cos audiences don't always want to hear that.
When he'd choose to be transgressive,
it's like, "Oh God, he's doing it.
"I guess we're doing this now. Hold onto your hats."
Moses went up Mount Sinai.
He's talking to a fucking burning bush
and it's talking back to him.
Were there any witnesses? No.
Mohammed was in the wilderness.
The Angel Gabriel, or as they call it, Jibril,
gave them the messages from God.
Any witnesses? No.
Joseph Smith, the Mormon, an angel called Moroni shows up.
Gives him two tablets of gold in ancient Egyptian
that he'd never set eyes on in his entire life.
He went into the house,
translated it that night into the Book of Mormon.
Where are the tablets of gold?
He gave them back to the angel.
Any witnesses? No.
How fucking convenient.
It seems to me that he don't regard that subject
with any particular reverence.
It's the same as he would talk about anything.
All things are important, all things not important.
What's ironic about the "Were there any witnesses?" thing,
is that if Billy Connolly had existed back then
and come down from the hills and said, "I saw a burning bush,"
he's such a convincing performer,
I would've been like, "Fair enough, stick it in the book."
I was gonna come here on the bus, but I was feared in case somebody
would think I was the Pope and I'd get tore into.
I think we felt, first of all Glasgow,
and then Scotland felt that he was our secret.
He was our kind of golden treasure that we could enjoy quietly.
And it kind of, at first, became a little bit annoying
that the rest of the world found out about him.
I took Billy on tour with me as a support act in America.
And it's very odd to have a comedian open a show for a rock star anyway,
but I just wanted him to go to America.
And he was brilliantly funny, and even though the audience,
I think, probably didn't understand what he was saying some of the time,
he was very brave to do that.
He loves Elton, and it was a very nice gift.
But it was not easy for him to play someone else's audience.
It was a nightmare.
They'd say, "Ladies and gentleman, Elton's friend, Billy Connolly."
"Boo, fuck off! Boo."
And I had to get on with it from there.
He probably went down like a lead zeppelin in some places.
But the thing is, it toughened him up
and it made him even more determined.
In Britain, being small, you become top of the bill.
And if that's not enough, you have to widen your field.
Will you please welcome Billy Connolly?
CHEERING
Hi, how are you doing, Sydney?
Hello, Brisbane people.
HE YODELS
Australia, New Zealand, Canada.
He's very big in those places.
Of course, Australia,
being the sort of place that is particularly interesting
in terms of things that can hurt you,
was a place that provided him with enormous amount of comedy material.
I touched a stonefish one day. I was extremely brave.
It was in a wee cave thing on some coral, you know?
It wasn't being its normal... "Hello.
"I'm a stone, you can stand on me, if you like."
Argh!
Apparently, it's the worst pain known to man.
How do they know this?
I don't know.
Somebody must have said, "I stood on one of them once."
"How was it?" "Worst fucking pain known to man."
"Have you known a lot of pain?"
"Aye... fell off my bike once."
I'm sure there's a device of some kind
that measures things like that.
There's some kind of meter.
It goes from "ouch"...
..right round to "what the fuck was that?"
"Jesus Christ!" is the next one, goes up like that, you know?
"Sweet fucking mother of Jesus. What the fuck was that?"
Right through "agony", to "worst pain known to man."
I think it's a German device.
Billy just wanted to play everywhere.
And he always wanted to prove that he could be successful in America.
And he really has been.
American people love him, and his career in America blossomed.
All right. See, everybody's really nice.
You laid that on for me, didn't you? Well, yeah, you know.
All these people came to say hi. HBO and you.
HBO and me, I'm telling you.
You know, Whoopi was an amazing advocate for Billy.
She opened a lot of doors for him
by inviting him to be on her HBO Special.
It was an amazingly important turning point.
I think I'll take a twizzler.
HBO'll pick this up.
BILLY LAUGHS
I said, "I've found this really amazing guy,
"and I wanna do a special with him."
See all these nice Brooklyn people? Whoopi!
How you doing? I love you.
Yeah, good to see you. See?
HBO said, "So, you'll do an hour,
"he'll do 15 minutes."
I said, "Billy, here's what we're gonna do.
"You're gonna do the hour and I'm gonna do the 15 minutes."
And he was like, "What?" I said, "Just roll with it."
This guy, as it turns out, is known everywhere in the world,
except for our country, which I found very, very offensive.
Very offensive, cos we're hip, ain't we?
CROWD: Yeah! We know what's happening, right?
Yeah! How come we didn't know about this?
'Americans, for the most part, like smart humour.'
We want people who are smart, who can take us a step up.
Do a little bit of other kind of humour, but take us on a journey.
I don't like the whole concept of flying in aeroplanes.
There's something basically wrong with it.
And they lie to you all the time.
Because if they were to tell you the truth, they would have to say,
"Ladies and gentleman, in the highly unlikely event
"of loss of power on all four engines...
"..then, in all probability,
"we'll go into the ground like a fucking dart.
"You won't be screaming,
"you'll be trying to get the seat in front of you out of your mouth.
"We would be obliged if you wear your life jacket on the way down.
"This will do you no good at all,
"but when archaeologists find you... in 200 years,
"they'll think there was a river here."
He's a consummate artist. People loved him.
You just don't get opportunities to see that kind of artistry.
And people don't think of comics as artists, but we are.
'It was my birthday.
I got Concorde to New York,
and I arrived at the same time as I left.
My birthday just kept going on and on.
'I did two shows at the theatre with Whoopi
'and we had a party at night.'
It was a great day in my life.
I've got Parkinson's disease,
and I wish to fuck he'd kept it to himself, but there you go.
I saw Billy do his last show
and it was a masterclass in performance and storytelling.
Well, I'm glad you find Parkinson's funny.
It was obvious from my movement, that I wasn't who I used to be.
And so I had to explain it to them,
just to say that I'm not defined by it.
It's got me, and it'll get me and it'll end me, but...
..that's OK with me.
There's a real sense with Billy that he's part of a long tradition.
And it's the tradition of people gathered round a fire,
listening to a story.
And that's a universal thing, which is why he's international.
He can work anywhere. He can walk on and just start telling you a story,
and the audience leans forward.
Hello.
Billy gets them because he talks about things we are interested in.
Why can't women keep a secret?
What it's like to be drunk.
Why do men hold their private parts?
Sex. Flatulence.
MIMICS FART
He talks about us, and I think that's why we like him.
You eat brown bread your whole life,
I eat white bread my whole life.
How much longer are you going to live than me?
We're talking a fortnight.
But it isn't a fortnight when you're 18,
shagging everything that walks in front of you.
No, it's a fortnight when you're in an old folks' home,
pissing your trousers, being fed out of a blender.
You know you're getting really old, because your tongue comes out
when the spoon's only halfway to your face.
"I tell you what, Mr Connolly, you're looking all sad.
"Sort of a sad expression in your face.
"Is that because your friends are all dead?
"That was the white bread crowd.
"But you've got two weeks to go."
I started low and I ended high.
Just staying up there until it's time to stop
seems a natural and good thing to do.
It's a good thing to be proud of.
I wanted to be a funny man, and I got it.
It's a bit of a responsibility
to be married to somebody who is so universally loved.
Shoom.
His health is actually great.
The move to Florida has been fantastic for him.
There's far less stress than when we were living in New York.
He is writing his autobiography, so that's very exciting.
He loves to draw. He goes into his studio space
and comes out with something incredible.
Drawing has given me a new lease of life.
I manage to get pictures together
and people like them,
which surprises me, and amazes and delights me.
It's a lovely thing to do with yourself.
# Sitting on the dock of a bay Wasting time... #
What he wants to do now is take it easy.
He wants to... he wants to fish.
He wants to sit on his dock in Florida and enjoy the sunshine,
and watch television, and drink tea and eat biscuits.
That's what he wants to do.
See you later, thank you.
It's been a pleasure talking to you. Good night.
It's been lovely talking to you. Good night.
Thanks very much, ladies and gentleman, I'm out of here.
Thank you very much and good night.
It's been a pleasure talking to you all those years.
From the beginning, when I was a folkie, right through.
I couldn't have done anything without you.
You've been magnificent.
He's had an incredible life. I think when he looks back on his life,
he'll be extremely proud of what he has done.
I named my son after Billy, by the way.
You know that? My son is called Billy.
Named after Billy Connolly.
Ah, oh, great.
I'm somewhat sentimental,
as I'm sure you've realised, about Billy Connolly.
All of us will miss the fact
that he's not gonna be performing, you know?
If someone makes you laugh, it's like falling in love.
If someone makes you laugh...
To think... we won't be able to see a new idea pop into his mind
'while he's doing something else'
and see one of his brilliant... divergences,
that's gonna be a loss.
Oh, I actually... I'm going to cry.
There aren't many that leave a mark, you know.
There aren't many that do that thing where you go,
"That's a Billy Connollyism."
I feel a bit emotional now, thinking about him, to be honest.
I think you can sort of forget how...
I hope he knows it. Oh my God,
I can't believe I'm gonna cry, this is so silly.
When I think about him deeply, I find it very moving.
I want him to be around for a long, long time.
I've changed my mind. I'm coming back.
I'm very touched.
'But remember, I'm happy where I am.'
And it's because of you and what you made of my life.
I've got no complaints at all.
# I've got piles, you've got scabies
# The wain's got the measles And the dog's got the rabies
# Oh, boy When you're with me, oh, boy
# The world can see That you were made for me
# Tum-tiddly-um-pum, oh, boy! #
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