Hair-raising moments are not uncommon for stand-up comics like Bill Bailey. Grumbling about turning 60 in “depressing” January, he smiles as he explains the reason for his new, close cropped hairstyle. The “turning-point” when he decided to lop-off his ponytail, came when it nearly went up in flames as he cooked on a campfire.
“That was a sign from the universe,” he tells The Mirror. “I’d had it since my twenties, but last year it felt like it was time for it to go. “So, it was out with “Gandalf” and in with a more sophisticated look, in time for his sixtieth. Although this meant more hairy moments for Bill. I went to the barber down the road from my house,” he says. “I told him it was a big day for me and how emotional I felt losing something that had been my identity for so long.
“He listened to me and then went, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ and he’d shaved it off—in seconds!” But the restyled Bill drew an approving “phwoah!” from fellow comic Dawn French in a tweet.
“I was quite taken aback by that but flattered, yeah” he says. “My hair was just one of the things that grew and I never really thought about cutting it.
“I wasn’t bothered about it and then, doing stand up, people latched on to it. ‘He looks like a wizard,’ ‘he looks like Gandalf!’ So I kept it. “ Now his 22-year-old son Dax is his dad’s personal groomer.
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Channel 4)“He’s great with the clippers, so he does a tidy up every now and then!” Bill laughs. Returning to being born in the wrong month, he says: “January is never the month for celebrating, is it?
“It’s cold, dark. No one wants to go out. So we stayed at home (for his 60th). My wife cooked a fantastic dinner and the next night I had some friends round.
“It was a quiet one but I’m planning to do it properly in the summer.”
Turning 60 is a time to reflect, but not to slow down.
Since his first solo show at the Edinburgh Festival in 1996 saw him nominated for a Perrier Award, Bill has raised uproarious laughter in packed theatres, he’s starred in the BAFTA winning Channel 4 classic Black Books and has been a favourite of comedy panel shows.
But becoming the oldest winner of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2020, aged 55, undoubtedly made him a national treasure.
Starting as, unsurprisingly, something of a joke act, he went on to be a very serious winner - lifting the glitterball trophy with dance partner Oti Mabuse. And he says being a comedian was an advantage, explaining: “Comics are pretty resilient. We stand up in front of people trying to make them laugh and gigs sometimes don’t go our way. You have to get used to things not working out, or people shouting or heckling, or whatever.
“We don’t take criticism personally. We might have a laugh about it, but we’re not going to have sleepless nights over it. “
Meanwhile, Bill and Oti, 34, were a dream team and became great friends.
“There is an alchemy in getting the partnership right on Strictly,” says Bill. “Oti recognised something in me from the start - that I didn’t want to let myself down.
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PA)“I don’t know if I was paired with another dancer, if they’d have recognised that. It can be hit and miss. You never know if people are going to get on, whether they gel or not on Strictly.
“My experience on Strictly gave me so much confidence to know that I can go that extra mile.”
And so he has, literally - completing the Cape Wrath trail in the Scottish Highlands, a 250 mile hike from Fort William up to Cape Wrath.
“It’s known as the toughest hike in Britain and there were points when I felt I could not walk another step.
“Every day, I walked 20 miles or more.There were days I didn’t think I could go on. Then I’d remember sitting in the rehearsal room with Oti saying, ‘C’mon, do another dance.’ I’d be exhausted, she’d make me get up, and it would turn out I’d have three more dances in me.”
One TV critic described latest Strictly champion Chris McCausland, who won Strictly with dance partner Dianne Buswell, as the most welcome series winner since Bill dazzled audiences four years earlier
Of Chris, a fellow comedian, who is blind due to retinitis pigmentosa, Bill says: “It’s a marvel how he was able to learn the steps. The sheer amount of trust he would have had in Dianne’s teaching is just extraordinary.
“I had to give Oti all my trust and I’m not blind. He was doing that and not being able to see what the result was.
“And not being able to see the heights of things that he was jumping off … gauging the distance on the dance floor...
“All those things are really difficult to do if you’re sighted!”
Strictly, Bill says, gave him the confidence to do more TV presenting.
“You’re being interviewed a lot of the time, so it makes you comfortable on camera,” he says.
And this week, he will be presenting a new series of Extraordinary Portraits on BBC One - which matches talented artists with inspiring individuals, to create breathtaking works of art.
Bill meets the people behind the portraits, who tell their back stories, ahead of them being exhibited in the spring in Bradford, as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations.
He says: “My job is to try and put these people at ease - as it can be daunting having a camera crew around you.
“It’s something that I have found I have some sort of facility for. I enjoy it very much.
“It’s a very rewarding TV series to be part of and I love drawing myself - although it’s more wildlife … birds, butterflies, bugs, beetles.”
A great nature lover, the funnyman’s West London home is shared with his wife, Kristin, his father Christopher, son Dax, 22, and a menagerie of animals including cockatoos, frogs and lizards:
“We are like a foster care home for animals. We look after them for a bit and try to rehome them in a collection or zoo,” he says.
And they don’t restrict their animal rescues to home turf.
Recalling he and Kristin’s mission to save an owl during a holiday in China, he explains: “We went to a restaurant in the Guangdong province. There were a whole bunch of animals in there that shouldn’t have been in captivity - some of them were rare, some were common - but none of them should have been in a restaurant.
“We thought if we can save one animal we will, so we bargained with them and bought the owl. “
Paying 400 Yuan - around £40 for the female Eurasian eagle-owl - he continues: “ We drove it to some woodland and it flew into the night. We all stood around and cheered.”
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James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock)Now it’s his turn to be cheered by appreciated audiences during his acclaimed Thoughtifier tour. Described as a “magical, musical mystery tour of the human mind,” it finishes its run at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket on February 15.
One of his biggest fans is his former GP dad Christopher, whose love of The Goons introduced Bill to comedy.
“Dad is in his nineties but he’s just amazing. He loves the social aspect of going to gigs. And he’s very sharp, “ says Bill.
Hugely family orientated, 2025 marks 20 years since Bill’s mum Madryn’s death from bowel cancer - which prompted him to work with Macmillan Cancer Support. The cause is even closer to his heart following the cancer death of his comedian friend Sean Lock in 2021.
“Mum was 74 when she died, and her birthday is on the VE day anniversary - so we will be thinking about her a lot,” says Bill. “Her ashes are up on a hill overlooking a beautiful valley near where we lived near Bath. My dad planted a tree there so we will go and say hello to her.”
On his 60th party plans he says: “I’m going to have a proper ding dong this summer. It’s lucky we are here when others are not.”
Extraordinary Portraits with Bill Bailey begins Friday February 7 at 7.30pm BBC One.
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