Billy Connolly

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2001

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week the castaway on Desert Island Discs is the comedian and actor, Billy Connolly. His one-man shows continue to pack venues on both sides of the Atlantic and his performances in films such as Mrs Brown, The Debt Collector and The Imposters have won him great critical acclaim. In conversation with Sue Lawley, he talks about his life and work and chooses eight records to take to the mythical island.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Long Gone Lonesome Blues by Hank Williams Book: Oxford English Dictionary Luxury: Banjo

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2001, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an entertainer, Seeing him in one of his more recent performances as Queen Victoria's protective gilly in the film Mrs Brown,
0:39.0	it's hard to believe that the actor is also one of our most outrageous comedians, but then he's a man who's
0:45.1	come a long way from a deprived, often brutal upbringing on Clyde's side through a hard apprenticeship
0:50.4	as a club and pub entertainer and a long battle with alcohol to a hugely
0:54.9	successful career on stage and small screen a happy marriage and finally
0:59.1	distinguished performances in well-received feature films. The man who persuaded the British public
1:04.6	to laugh at vomit, sex and bad language has become in the way of enfance terrible,
1:10.1	a respectable performer, or has he?
1:12.6	If your knickers are down, you're funny, he says.
1:15.0	I love life with my knickers down.
1:17.0	He is Billy Connolly.
1:19.0	I didn't remember seeing that.
1:22.0	That's a good one.
1:23.0	But it's true, you're still a hell raiser at heart, aren't you?
1:27.0	You still got that appetite for danger.
1:29.0	I seem to think that way.
1:31.0	You know, I don't set out to be a hell raiser but things I think are normal
1:35.5	seem to raise a bit of hell with the beige crowd you know you're not in the beige cardigans
1:41.3	yes no I'm not a beige cardi and I upset them terribly extremely easily.
1:46.0	But I read you like housework you like cooking?
	...

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