An Audience with Billy Connolly

Review by Brian Slade

By the mid-1980s, LWT’s An Audience with… series was really finding its feet. In its guise post-the Jasper Carrott series, Dame Edna had done it twice (thank you possums) while such luminaries as Dudley Moore, Kenneth Williams, Mel Brooks and Joan Rivers had held a celebrity audience captive with great results. In 1985, one of the more famous successes in the long line of triumphs arrived on our screens as the Big Yin marched triumphantly through An Audience with Billy Connolly.

It's safe to say that Billy Connolly and television were a difficult mix. Much like some of the other celebrities to grace the An Audience with… stage, producers knew that audiences liked Connolly, they just didn’t know quite what to do with him. Indeed, Connolly, for all his fame, was never a regular on the small screen. He had guest roles in The Kenny Everett Television Show, but his biggest success actually came overseas with sitcom Head of the Class and its short-lived spin-off, Billy. In An Audience with Billy Connolly, the larger-than-life comedian even admitted to being, ‘the darling of the chat shows – but I lie a lot!’ One part of his routine touches on his vocation, admitting that, ‘I’ve never understood what I do.’

Edited down to around 50 minutes for its evening slot, Connolly was at his best because much like Ken Dodd when he had several visits to the format, here was a chance for a television audience to see him in his natural habitat, albeit a slightly watered-down version of his usual colourful diction!

Billy was in his prime and his routine spent plenty of time mocking himself – ‘When I buy something expensive, I look like I stole it.’ He talks about his upbringing as a Catholic in Partick, with the obligatory questioning of religion, and goes on to discuss his time as a welder on the Clyde shipyards and his involvement in the Territorial Army: ‘We did an exercise in Cyprus…we chased the green cowards through the mountains for 10 days and we caught one – he worked in the same shipyard as me!’

Connolly’s humour, in his words, comes from being ‘intrigued with the way ordinary people behave.’ He does mock, suggesting nobody should vote because it just encourages politicians, and folk singers, Scottish in particular, get rough treatment – but he always brings it back to himself for a bit of self-mockery: ‘I used to be a folk singer, but I was dreadful. My voice was like a goose farting in the fog.’

Much of the televised element included Billy taking on adverts in the newspapers of the time, touching on incontinence pants, energy suits and a big slipper (singular). And then Billy finishes with a dabble into the debate over the royals, nationalism and National Anthem. He’s particularly disapproving of God Save the Queen, even though he was content for her to be saved. He was understandably less than thrilled at the verse added in the version in the 1700s that referenced ‘rebellious Scots to crush,’ leading to his often-impersonated retort of, ‘oh, d’ya bloody think so?’ Billy’s simplest option is to merely replace the National Anthem with the theme from The Archers!

As with many of the earlier evenings of An Audience with… the humour can date, but it is still funny. In the 50-minute tv version, unlike most of the others, the scripted Q&A back and forth with the audience is cut, presumably because of the volume of quality stand-up offered by Billy. Despite the audience being a who’s who of 1980s pop culture, somewhat akin to the video that adorned Peter Kay’s 500 Miles Comic Relief single years later, the extended version knocking around the internet is where you will find audience participation, along with additional comic gold.

An Audience with Billy Connolly is Mr Connolly at his finest, even if a little tamer for television audiences. As with Kenneth Williams and Ken Dodd, it is probably the best option for capturing his talents for the small screen, and it worked a charm, reminding us of why he has remained a stand-up comedy icon when others of subsequent generations have come and gone. And for those who somehow don’t know his comedy, take a look at An Audience with Billy Connolly and see the master at work.