Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Why UK Comedian Bill Bailey Has a Problem With Lisa Simpson!

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

We talk to hilarious comedian Bill Bailey ahead of his NZ tour!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks very much. Yeah, I'm pretty good. I've still got a slight kind of huskiness of voice. I'm a little bit sort of wiped out, but other than that... It's sexy, it's sexy. It's doing things to us all, I think. Yeah, it's husky. It's nice to have you back because you've had an interesting relationship with New Zealand over the last couple of years. You were here through, you know, you did MIQ, you stayed in a hotel and now you're back. What was it like walking through and not getting onto a bus? It was great.

It felt like a novelty, you know, going through airports and, oh, everything's open and the lights are on and we're not being sort of prodded into a bus. And that was great. I mean, as it should be, obviously. But it was, as you say, it was quite an odd experience. I mean, that whole time, almost sometimes I feel now, did that actually happen? Did we go through all that you know what the hell was that in uh i mean i spent a lot of time in hotels you know on tour anyway so so you know the idea of being

holed up in a hotel wasn't that kind of you know it wasn't a great hardship i mean that's the sort of thing i do anyway i mean um you know and it was a hotel after all you could phone down and order a bottle of wine so So it's not like prison. It's not prison. But there was a couple of interesting things I noticed about it, which I still think now, I think that was quite interesting about ourselves. It's something you pick up about yourself. And that was that we were allowed 45 minutes of exercise every day.

And it was very popular, so you had to kind of book it in and you had to book your slot. And then we walked around the car park and the exercise was just walking up and down the car park. That was it. So you walked to the end of the car park and then round a little traffic cone and then back down the car park

and then round another cone and up. And so you're just doing laps up and down the car park. And so very quickly you start to kind of start to slightly go a little bit loopy yeah so and so i was listening to a lot of norwegian pagan folk metal at the time all right so as you do and so that sort of kept me keep saying but then this is the interesting thing that uh one section of the car park that was it was under construction so the tarmac was there was no tarmac it was just gravel right and so just having the variation of the crunching of the gravel was like a thrill it was

like it was it took on a disproportionate amount of excitement. From what it should have been, yeah. So every day I was like, I'm walking on the tarmac. Oh, there's the gravel. The gravel's coming. Here comes the gravel. Oh, look at that crunchy. Oh, so crunchy. Oh, so crunchy.

Oh, back to the tarmac. Back to the tarmac. With Norwegian folk metal blasting in your ears. Or just throat singing in my head. Oh, so good. Now, Thoughtify is the name of your show. You're going around the country again. Thoughtify, I mean, were you seventh most intelligent man in Britain voted recently?

Well, not quite. I mean, if only. No, it was the readers of Radio Times magazine, which is the sort of the TV listings magazine. Right. We've got a TV guide here. You've got a TV guide. We're a little behind the times. We still call it the radio times.

The radio is still a thing? That gives you an idea of Britain today, right? We're just sort of locked into this nostalgic world. Oh, yes, I remember the radio. It was marvellous back then. So read as a radio times magazine. So I'm guessing that's kind of a demographic there. But yes, I was seventh most intelligent person on the TV.

Readers of Radio Times magazine. But I just wanted to say, I just pointed out that number six was Lisa Simpson, which is a fictitious cartoon character. So that sort of took the shine off it. I see why you were having to put in perspective who the voting public were. Just to let you know. But thought of fire does sound quite intelligent, like a word that was a made-up word from yourself.

Yeah, I made it up. I like to make up a word. I think that's one of the things I do for my tours, and thoughtify is like a combination of thoughts, amplifier. I just thought, yeah, that kind of says music and comedy, so it kind of is a pleasing kind of word. And it's basically, I suppose, the whole thing is about humans and tech. I think that's the thing.

It's like we're in a time where, you know, AI and all that, there's a big panic about it, existential panic. Is it going to take over? Is it going to take over the arts? And this is very much I try and explore that a little bit in the show and actually have created, using AI technology, a sort of bill, basically me as an AI chat helper. Really?

Which is quite as disturbing as it sounds. And it's using sort of bits of software that are available. And it was quite fascinating. That's the thing. I mean, having dabbled in it, where are we heading? Are we excited? Are we terrified? Yeah, I think there's a genuine worry that it can,

certainly in film business, in people's images, like there's the recent strikes in LA, because people's images can be used. And you might not get any you'll have a job I mean they'll just say well we got your image and then they'll get chat gbt to write the script and then AI will generate all the characters and then the film industry well what we're looking at yeah um and it's it's actually fascinating that how we can subvert that by being more human and that's one of the sort of themes i

want to explore in the show is that the thing it can't do is emotional intelligence nuance consciousness randomness eccentricity all the things that we love about us about humans it's it can only replicate things that you tell it so it's but already this ai generated chat thing that i have in the show has learned who i am learns what i do and so now unprompted it says things like have a great show and i whoa you know what that is yeah well about humor wise do you reckon because obviously if you say tell us a joke sometimes it's not quite there this is the thing right it can only do like you know snarky one-liners it could you know and and it sounds a little bit like a comedy nerd you know like somebody's that hung around comedians and it doesn't really understand comedy and just kind of

comes up with sort of goofy punch lines like people will be talking and it goes yeah yeah and that was just the stuff and emma goes what you know yeah and then the whole bus knows this doesn't make any sense and it goes yeah that's comedy right i'm doing it right i'm doing comedy right that's what it feels like it encourages us as comics to to explore more random be be more imagine the original, the more eccentric and odd that we are, the less chance it's got of replacing us. And just trying to

join in and conversation. Exactly. So I'm just trying to banter with you guys. Yeah, come on. Bill Bailey with us. You're touring the country. You've been here

a few times before. Now, the legendary John Cleese once went to Palmerston North and he said if you were to ever end it for yourself, Palmerston North would be the city. Not a great advert for Palmerston North and he said if you were to ever end it for yourself

Palmerston North would be the city Not a great advert for Palmerston North I think that was he being very rude Are there any places like that you don't have to say in New Zealand but that you've been to worldwide that you're fearful of going back there again Well you know what

the thing is that New Zealand is one of my favourite places. And I'm not genuinely because I'm an outdoorsy person. And so this is the place to be. By that same logic, the place that I would say I wouldn't bother if I never went back was Dubai. Oh, really? Because it's such a sort of soulless place. It's like you look out the window.

It's like one of those moon bases you know like it just feels like it's it's the whole thing hasn't got a soul it's an odd place well you do love your outdoors you know anything from skydiving you do you know you'd throw yourself into strictly come dancing which you won in the uk yes i did a lot of things even walked out 100 miles for your good mate sean uh sean as well to comedian you know which is you know it's you throw yourself into a lot of different things even walked 100 miles for your good mate Sean as well, to comedian, you know, which is, you know, you throw yourself into a lot of different things. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. And because, you know, I mean, and you mentioned the dancing there, that was a huge thing out in my comfort zone.

I always think that if you're going to get involved in something, you have to commit 100%, just throw yourself into it. The walking as well, you know, I love hiking, love getting out there. And as you mentioned, yeah, my old mate, the comedian Sean Locke, who I'd known for more than 30 years. And so we organized a charity walk for a cancer charity. We walked over 100 miles, which was an amazing thing to do. I mean, I recommend anyone who wants to, you know,

if you want to sort of be reminded of the greatness of the human spirit, you know, and if you're feeling that, oh, you know, your faith in human nature is waning, do something like that. It was amazing. People just would come out of their houses and just hand me money, you know, and they would hand me cake and, you know, put banners up, you know, put some signs up. I mean, it was, you know,

somebody left me a piece of cake wrapped up in a freezer bag under a hedge and with a note on it saying, there you go, Bill, and no one would eat it. And they were going, I'm not eating cake out of a hedge. And I'm going, hedge cake, come on. What's wrong with hedge cake? What's wrong with hedge cake?

I love it. It's kind of like a slower Forrest Gump. Yeah. It's sort of like that. It was. People sort of coming out, encouraging, handing me things, cakes, leaving cryptic messages. Somebody left a, creating a message out of twigs.

And they put this, you know, good on you, Bill, or something, in twig form. That actually was a little bit creepy. That was a little bit Blair Witch. Bill Bailey with us now. You're also, amongst your many other talents, you're a classically trained musician. Yes. Now, I have brought in an

instrument that, at home, probably could be deemed the world's most obnoxious instrument. It's your humble recorder. Yes. Now, I have dead-old wiped it. It's fully clean. Can you make a recorder sound? What? You mean with my mouth rather than play it?

Don't play it. For God's sake, don't play it. This is quite a nice recorder. Oh, is it? It's a nice one. It's not what he plays. To be honest, I haven't ever seen one of this colour. It's sort of an off-white, sort of a magnolia.

Sort of Joris Skintone. It is. I've never seen one of this colour. It's a sort of an off-white, sort of a magnolia. Sort of Joris Skintone. It is. I've never seen one. It's one of the rare, those rare ones. Those rare whales you see them like, yes, the rare white recorder. Wow. I feel like I'm on Middle Earth or something. It's beautiful. Actually, a couple of people started dancing out in the corridor. I don't know if you knew that. All Lord of the Rings cast just sort of slowly converge.

Well, it's like the bat phone or something. People hear that, they go, ah, yes, I hear the pipes. Bill Bailey, that's so funny. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Go see him on tour. Around the details, we'll put all the details at the hits.co.nz. Hey, thanks, mate.

That was awesome. Cheers.