Sir Billy Connolly has officially retired from stand-up comedy after a career spanning 40 years, we discuss his legacy that paved the way for comics all over the world and how will it feel losing our very own Court Jester. Listen to our latest Culture Patter Podcast Below or on all podcast platforms – @ThePatterPod
By Shaun Forrest & Jamie Watt
The Barras Market has long been a place for wheelers and dealers. If you needed anything, ‘down the Barras’ you went. A hive of working-class people haggling for clothes, curtains and records. Sir Billy Connolly’s dad would buy records for him, Slim Whitman and Hank Williams would sculpt the beginning of Billy’s affection of American Country and Folk music. Billy would make music his hobby, going to gigs around Scotland where he developed his style, idolising bohemian rock stars and embracing the Sixties folk scene. Billy would romanticise the Folkie lifestyle, he would pluck his banjo whenever he could while writing songs about his life and aspirations.
The mentality of Glasgow’s working class in the 1960’s was that men should commit themselves to earning a decent wage by grafting at the shipyards of the Clyde. This is where a young Connolly inevitably ended up, but harboured unique aspirations. Billy once confessed his dream of leaving the Clyde Shipyard forever to a Willie McInnes who told him to walk out on the spot and pursue his dreams. Willie had seen too many men become depressed and regretful on the yard, men who could have followed their dreams but instead kept their head down and buried their desires. This advice not only spurred the Big Yin to escape the Shipyard but might have been the realisation he could escape the miserabilism of Scottish life entirely. Afterall, The Big Yin now resides in the Sunshine State.
“And I look at these Scots on tele, they are sort of singing shortbread tins, it’s the whole nation, they are singing about this garbage, hills and rivers.”
Connolly has vocalised how difficult he finds it to reconcile his socialist politics with flag-waving nationalism, and his frustration with the sentimentalised ‘tea-towel’ depiction of Scotland. During the run up to the 2014 Independence Referendum, he stood in the middle and declared he felt more connected to the men who worked in the Liverpool Shipyards than the Nationalists. However, his feelings changed after Brexit claiming an independent Scotland was now a more favourable option as long as the Nationalist “Tartan Bastards” don’t get carried away.
“I think the comedian, like the poet plays an incredibly important role in society. He should be able to spot the absurdity in something that is just accepted.’’
In modern comedy you will expect to watch people preform observation or situational acts, gags about things we can all relate to. Conolly’s ability to find humour and absurdity in the mundane was unrivalled, be it a floating jobby in a public toilet, the scenes of a house party or losing your virginity. Stories told every day in the pub were now being told on a stage with a theatrical twist. Billy effortlessly timed his physical comedy with these hilarious tales while clad in flamboyant attire, skin-tight trousers, vibrant shirts, banana shoes or a multi-coloured bodysuit. Evoking the figure Medieval Jester, Billy understood he had to complete the act by looking the joke.
The Jester is symbolic of common sense and honesty. He holds the ability to peer through the bullshit and hypocrisy of society and make light of the everyday tragicomedies we all experience, without fear of retribution. The Jester’s role was to find humour in the unmentionable, to make an audience feel safe in laughing at the taboo because the attention was all on him. Like the Court Jester, Connolly was daft, irreverent and carnivalesque. He mixed physical comedy with the scatological and self-persiflage humour. His language was guttural and rich with expletives. He turned swearing into an art form and celebrated the infinite plasticity of the word ‘fuck’. Billy Connolly became so recognised as the nation’s official modern Jester he could tell the Queen to fuck off and still get a laugh from the Royal Box.
A comedian’s responsibility to explore and agitate the boundaries a society’s values never goes without its controversies. One particular story, told during his 1974 Solo Concert show, propelled him into the spotlight for both hilarious and contentious reasons. In the act, appropriately named The Crucifixion, Billy set the scene of the Last Supper but highlights the Bible’s misprints. This iconic religious event actually took place in Glasgow’s Gallowgate, more specifically the famous Saracens Head pub. The story portrays the apostles as a bunch or rowdy drunks waiting on the ‘Big Yin Jesus’ before he ends up crucified and giving the Romans abuse for having shite patter. The joke, by modern standards doesn’t appear overly offensive, but in a bigoted fuelled 1970’s Glasgow this was condemned as utter blasphemy. But protests from priests and Godfearing followers wouldn’t deter Billy or make him express regret, declaring it would be fascist if he apologised for having a point of view.
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