Billy Connolly

[Coprolite]

Dirty Billy* has a retrospective series on at the moment.

What's the CaB view on his legacy and contribution to comedy culture?

Probably best focus on stand up or songs and ignore sitcom.

[Ray Travez]

I preferred his stand-up after he moved to LA and started taking the piss out of the scene there. I can relate to that having lived in Brighton for ten years. Wasnt so keen on High Horse. It was sad to see him just standing there.

The travel stuff is good. Banjos and mountains.

I like his dress sense. I'm influenced by that a bit. Obviously the recent gear, not whatever the fuck he was wearing in 1985. Had a lovely polka dot scarf on in a recent BBC show.

[Jockice]

I watched An Audience With for the first time in years a couple of months ago after finding it while flicking channels. Still made me laugh. Of course being a Scot in England it's assumed that you're going to be a Connolly fan. Which is fine by me as I do like him, as did my mum and sister (we had a couple of eight-track albums by him during my childhood, which I presume one of them bought) but my dad didn't like him at all. Thought he was crude and unfunny. Which is why I felt for him when he sat in while someone was doing work on my flat, who apparently spent most of the day recounting Connolly routines in full, complete with excruciating faux-Jock accent. And of course to a Scot there's nothing on earth funnier than hearing an English person pretending to be one of them. While speaking in a voice that resembles every accent on earth. Except Scottish.

[Glitch King]

Glitch King!

[TheMonk]

He was tops. Saw him live many a time. Always a good night.
Also an excellent chat show guest.
https://youtu.be/TkxC2bGNlzI

[Malcy]

Been listening to his old vinyl albums recently. His best work in my opinion. Brilliant storytelling. The later stand up work where he just swears, growls and laughs for ages while telling a joke don't do as much for me.

An Audience With... Is probably his last proper great show. Watched the first episode of Billy & Me but haven't got round to the rest yet.

[DrGreggles]

First saw him live in the mid 90s, which was a great show but a little underwhelming after having watched/listened to his earlier stuff pretty regularly since I was about 12.
I probably rate his later shows lower - not that they were shit, just not as good.

He's definitely one of the greats though.

[alan nagsworth]

I was enchanted by him on the Buckles podcast so decided to go back and watch one of his classic older shows, the Albert Hall gig from '87. I just don't think a lot of standup ages very well to be honest, because I found quite a lot of the act to be rather tepid and not all that funny, despite being fully aware of how much I love the man.

[Jake Thingray]

Considering it was directed by Patrick McGoohan, the Columbo episode where he played the murderer could have been better.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

I liked it when he joked about that feller getting his head chopped off.

[Satchmo Distel]

On the 1970s LPs* I owned, he seemed to be focused on willies and jobbies. Later notorious for the Ken Bigley joke. Had a No. 1 single in 1975. Lucky bastard shagged Pamela Stephenson every night for decades.

I think Connolly could have been a great 'straight' actor, as he knew that less is more when you're on a big screen.

*Best moment might be when he deals with a female heckler, although he refrains from calling her a cunt as Bill Hicks did with his hecklers.

[alan nagsworth]

Lucky bastard shagged Pamela Stephenson every night for decades.

How do you know they weren't doing it at other times of the day, or on some days not at all?

[Ambient Sheep]

The 1991 video was always my fave.  I've recounted it before, but the bit about Toblerones had me on the floor almost unable to breathe the first time I saw it.

[ProvanFan]

I looked up the incontinence pants bit from 'An Audience with...' quite recently (after seeing this https://www.dezeen.com/2020/02/24/harikrishnan-lcf-inflatable-latex-fashion) and was laughing hard along with all the stars. Pishing myself, you could say.

[Autopsy Turvey]

I was enchanted by him on the Buckles podcast so decided to go back and watch one of his classic older shows, the Albert Hall gig from '87. I just don't think a lot of standup ages very well to be honest, because I found quite a lot of the act to be rather tepid and not all that funny, despite being fully aware of how much I love the man.

I was disappointed by the Billy & Albert VHS, as the LP must have been from another night and is much funnier.

[Jittlebags]

Jobby whicher (sic). Classic.

[Shaky]

I liked it when he joked about that feller getting his head chopped off.

Yeah, that was great. A rare moment of genuine danger from latter day Billy.

[Ray Travez]

I didn't hear the joke, but I'm guessing that the target was the pornography of suffering; the guy pleading for his life each night on the news, and not, as seemed to be popularly assumed, a genuine call for him to be executed.

[Smeraldina Rima]

When he was badgered at the time he said something along those lines, but I think there's another explanation for that kind of joke in his description on the Adam Buxton podcast of doing stand-up soon after the the twin towers were flown into. I like this description so much I've decided to type it out with Buxton's prompts and interjections omitted:

"I had good fun with it. Every time an aeroplane flew across. It's best to be completely politically incorrect in that situation like that. Half way doesn't work and the sympathetic stuff comes over as jelly. Go for it. It's a huge tragedy. Treat it with a huge dose of humour. Only huge works. And it worked great. They want to be led in some way to feeling better. I don't look on them as imbeciles but they know there's something missing in their life, they feel rotten, and they would like to be dragged into a better position, and it's your duty to do it.

Of course you should do it. Because at that time show business is the only reality. Making people laugh is a cogent worthwhile thing to do and in the face of something that is abjectly sinful the only step you have as a human being is to show the strength that you've got in comparison. You must do it. If you're a worthwhile comedian you must put your tuppence worth in there.

Just letting the ideas come in behind one another. You don't know that's the joy of it. That's where the diamonds are in it. You just speak your mind and then you'll get a little hint in one of the lines of where you should go next. It's dangerous along this way so you go along that way and let it happen and it's always worthwhile."

The Ken Bigley jokes were reportedly: "I see Ken Bigley every morning, and I'm disappointed that he's not dead yet. ... Aren't you the same as me, don't you wish they would just get on with it?" And: "What is it with him and that young Asian wife?" The first one brought the complaint: "That's a man's life you're talking about." The second one "a few boos".

[Pancake]

Never actually sat and watched a full set but could watch the travel shows over and over, especially the Australia one, which I've probably sat through about 20 times, in another lifetime he'd have just done them and been brill

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

As I've said on 'ere before, saying " What is it with him and that young Asian wife?"  doesn't really constitute telling a joke, as such.

I have never found Billy Connolly remotely amusing.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

He's one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time, no one else in that field has ever managed to reduce me to helpless laughter. An Audience With... is a dazzling stand-up masterclass, he's at the absolute top of his game there. Richard Pryor levels of hilarity.

The 1994 video is almost as good; his extended anecdote about attending an absurdly posh dinner party in some manor or other is one of the funniest routines I've ever heard. "It's a ghastly nightmare!", "Aren't the Goodies good?" etc.

[kidsick5000]

He's one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time, no one else in that field has ever managed to reduce me to helpless laughter. An Audience With... is a dazzling stand-up masterclass, he's at the absolute top of his game there. Richard Pryor levels of hilarity.

I don't think a stand-up has caused me more pain through laughing.
Not sure why anyone bothered with doing another An Audience with... the levels of laughter from that audience.
And so often it doesn't seem like a routine. It's just a bloke telling you stuff he's seen – and yet it's brilliant

[Brian Freeze]

The 1994 video is almost as good; his extended anecdote about attending an absurdly posh dinner party in some manor or other is one of the funniest routines I've ever heard. "It's a ghastly nightmare!", "Aren't the Goodies good?" etc.

Is that the one where he asks someone what they do and the answer is "toboggan"?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Yep. And then he goes off on a riff about someone in a Glasgow job centre saying they want to be a tobboganist. "Just put down 'tobacconist'..."

[Utter Shit]

Been meaning to ask this for a while but didn't think it was worth making a thread for - does anyone know which song it is that Billy screams "SING!" at the audience during the chorus? I'm thinking it might be on the same tape that had Tell Laura I Love Her on.

[DrGreggles]

Been meaning to ask this for a while but didn't think it was worth making a thread for - does anyone know which song it is that Billy screams "SING!" at the audience during the chorus? I'm thinking it might be on the same tape that had Tell Laura I Love Her on.

Is that the C&W song about his grandma?

[Utter Shit]

Possibly...I've had a look on Youtube and the song rings a bell (I feel like I can hear where the bits where he shouts at the audience should be) but if it is, it's a different version. Much louder and more raucous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WK5kFaavIw

[DrGreggles]

That's a different version to the one I had.
Fucked if I can remember the album though. In fact it could have been a compilation.

Actually, could it have been the Welly Boot Song?

[Malcy]

Been meaning to ask this for a while but didn't think it was worth making a thread for - does anyone know which song it is that Billy screams "SING!" at the audience during the chorus? I'm thinking it might be on the same tape that had Tell Laura I Love Her on.

It's in the Welly Boot song. The version on side 2 of the 'Get Right Intae Him' LP.