Back to the Southern Hemisphere.
British comic, actor and musician Bill Bailey returns to Australia in October & November for the world premiere of his brand new live show, Limboland. His extensive national tour starts in Perth on 1 October and will take him right through the country including Far North Queensland, Darwin and a special performance at the Just For Laughs festival at the Sydney Opera House on 16 October.
The gap between how we imagine our lives to be and how they really are is the subject of Bill’s new show Limboland.
With his trademark intelligence and sharp wit, he tells tales of finding himself in this halfway place. From his countless global travels, he recounts the hilarious saga of a disastrous family trip to Norway to see the Northern Lights. He rails against a world that doesn’t match up to our expectations and contemplates the true nature of happiness.
And no Bill Bailey show would be complete without music, so we have Bill’s version of the protest song, a heart-rending country and western ballad played on a Bible, and a fabulously downbeat version of ‘Happy Birthday’.
Bill is best known to Australian audiences for his stand up shows, his sell out Australian tours, and his appearances on television in shows including QI and ABCTV’s award winning hit, Black Books, in which he played the increasingly deranged ex accountant Manny Bianco opposite fellow comic, Dylan Moran.
In 2012 his summer was spent filming with BBC Natural History Unit in Indonesia and Malaysia for Bill Bailey’s Jungle Hero, a two part documentary about naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who came up with the theory of evolution at the same time as Darwin, yet who seems to have been erased from history. Transmitted in 2013 on SBS, this was very much a passion project for Bill, whose interest in his hero was sparked some 13 years earlier whilst travelling in his favourite part of the world.
His hard work and passion was celebrated earlier this year as Bill and his Jungle Hero team were the big winners at the 2014 Royal Television Society West of England Awards. The team took won the “Best Specialist Factual Programme”, “Best Special Effects & Graphics” and Bill picking up “Best Male On-Screen Talent”.
2014 will see Bill continuing to develop more ideas for film and television with his own production company, Glassbox Productions (formed in November 2007), who are responsible for bringing to the screen Tinselworm, Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra and Dandelion Mind.
PERTH, RIVERSIDE THEATRE – WEDNESDAY 1 OCTOBER
CANBERRA, ROYAL THEATRE – SATURDAY 4 OCTOBER
MELBOURNE, HAMER HALL – SUNDAY 5 OCTOBER
ADELAIDE, THEBARTON THEATRE – THURSDAY 9 OCTOBER
BRISBANE, QPAC CONCERT HALL – SUNDAY 12 OCTOBER
SYDNEY, OPERA HOUSE – JUST FOR LAUGHS – THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER
CAIRNS, CONVENTION CENTRE – THURSDAY 23 OCTOBER
TOWNSVILLE, CIVIC THEATRE – FRIDAY 24 OCTOBER
DARWIN, ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE – SUNDAY 26 OCTOBER
NEWCASTLE, CIVIC THEATRE – THURSDAY 30 OCTOBER
HOBART, WREST POINT ENT. CENTRE – WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER
LAUNCESTON, PRINCESS THEATRE – FRIDAY 14 NOVEMBER