Strictly Come Dancing<\/a>, the most immediately obvious change is his hair: gone are the shaggy record-shop-proprieter locks that for decades defined the Bill Bailey look. \u201cI remember I was on a crowded Tube and the doors closed on the back of my head, trapping my hair; I had to sort of style it out until the next station,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI thought, \u2018Yeah, maybe this is a sign.\u2019\u201d By the end, he adds, it had \u201cbecome a bit unruly, to the point where I\u2019d see photos of myself at a smart family function, and think, \u2018Oh my God, some dodgy old bloke from the fairground\u2019s made his way into the wedding.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nHair or no hair, Bailey in all other ways seems much the same as ever. He\u2019s genial and inquisitive, tempering his natural whimsy with enough world-weariness to avoid crossing over into twee. In many ways, he is the perfect choice for Extraordinary Portraits, a programme that requires both a light touch and an underlying sensitivity. In each episode Bailey meets a noteworthy member of the public, an \u201ceveryday hero\u201d, whose likeness is then captured by a professional portrait painter. (Or, in one instance, a sculptor.) <\/p>\n
There is, Bailey says, a democratising element to the premise \u2013 taking an artform historically gate-kept by the wealthy elite, and re-appropriating it for the ordinary man or woman in the street. \u201cWe film in Kelmarsh House, this beautiful old house in Northamptonshire. And the walls are covered with old portraits \u2013 all of men, who were important in some way. And that\u2019s really what portraiture was about, the great and the good, the well-connected, the wealthy aristocracy or the monarchy. And this show flips that on its head.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new series of Extraordinary Portraits begins with what may well be its most affecting episode to date. titled \u201cI Tackled a Terrorist with a Narwhal Tusk\u201d. Bailey commissions a sculpture of Darryn Frost, the civil servant who risked his life to intervene in a terrorist attack near London Bridge in 2019. As we watch the sculptor Nick Elphick get to know his subject, we see the huge, traumatic impact the incident had on Frost\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
![\"Sculpter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/556454.jpeg\")
Sculpter Elphick, left, and \u2018hero\u2019 Frost on Bailey\u2019s \u2018Extraordinary Portraits\u2019 (BBC\/Chatterbox)<\/p>\n
\u201cDarryn was very articulate and measured, and talked about it with great compassion and self-deprecation,\u201d Bailey says. \u201cIt affected him so deeply. He didn\u2019t even realise how deeply. And it started to manifest itself in a lack of memory. He wasn\u2019t able to remember what someone had just said to him. But he can remember in forensic, molecular detail \u2013 like 4K video \u2013 exactly what happened [during the attack].\u201d <\/p>\n
When Frost is finally confronted with his own sculpture, the effect is overwhelming. \u201cIt was extraordinary,\u201d says Bailey. \u201cHe became extremely emotional, and suddenly the whole weight of that was lifted. It was immensely powerful.\u201d Bailey seems moved even now, just speaking about it.<\/p>\n
Frost may be the most unusual case study \u2013 not so much everyday heroism as rare, potentially life-saving valour \u2013 but every one of Bailey\u2019s subjects has a worthwhile story to tell. Eddie Brocklesby is another \u2013 an octogenarian woman and late-in-life Iron Man triathlete who has successfully championed exercise schemes for older people. In a sort of light, uplifting way, her episode probes ideas around ageing, a subject Bailey thinks about a lot. \u201cI\u2019m just aware of the passing of time,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd time is precious. I feel that more acutely now.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"Bailey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/559729.jpeg\")
Bailey poses with ‘Iron Gran’ Eddie Brocklesby and hikers (BBC\/Chatterbox)<\/p>\n
Tempus fugit indeed. It\u2019s now been a little over 61 years since Bailey was born \u2013 in Somerset, to an NHS GP father and a hospital nurse mother \u2013 and more than four decades since he broke through on the comedy scene. He\u2019s been with his wife, Kristin, for decades too, having married spontaneously in Indonesia in 1998; they share a son, and live in west London in a house filled with unusual pets (armadillos, chameleons, cockatoos). You\u2019d have to go back even further to find the genesis of Bailey\u2019s work: it became clear in teenhood that he was a gifted musician with perfect pitch, and it was, in hindsight, inevitable when he started incorporating dextrous musical pastiches into his act. <\/p>\n
Today, this act bears many of the same Bailey hallmarks, alongside his attempts to wrestle with the cultural paradigms of the modern era. This includes generative AI, which Bailey has experimented with \u2013 and picked apart \u2013 on stage. \u201cThere\u2019s been so much slop, as people call it,\u201d he says. \u201cAI videos that get pinged around on social media. And it\u2019s just annoying, and wearying, and also just like\u2026 cringe, really. I think people are generally feeling that the great fear that it was going to replace everyone hasn\u2019t materialised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bailey\u2019s forthcoming stage show, Vaudevillean, is an attempt to recapture the specific joy of live performance in the face of things like AI. \u201cComedically, I think that AI is a dead end, really,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s self-parody. And of course the negative effect of that is when you see an amazing thing online, people just go, \u2018Well, that\u2019s just AI. It\u2019s not real.\u2019 But when people go along to a live show, they see something happening right in front of them.\u2029That\u2019s a rare commodity, and that should be celebrated.\u201d <\/p>\n
In essence, Strictly is a simple idea. You get some people and you teach them to dance, and get them to fall in love with it<\/p>\n
Bill Bailey<\/p>\n
There\u2019s always been something of the vaudevillian showperson about Bailey, of course \u2013 perhaps this is the key to understanding his success on Strictly in 2020, when he became, at 55, the oldest contestant to lift the glitterball trophy, having won the competition with the professional dancer Oti Mabuse. Brushing aside any suspicions that his involvement would fall under the banner of \u201cnovelty act\u201d, he became, through sheer skill and enthusiasm, a competitor who went the distance. <\/p>\n
In the past few years, of course, Strictly has been beset by scandals, several of which involve the mistreatment of contestants. What did Bailey make of all this? He thinks for a second, and seems to pick his words carefully. \u201cI think that it\u2019s difficult for me to compare my experiences,\u201d he replies. \u201cWhen I did it, it was during the pandemic, and that was a very unusual version of it. We danced, we trained, and went home. There was nothing else. It was intense. I don\u2019t really know the people that were involved in it, but it was a great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Sparkling](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774610830_272_newFile-1.jpg\")
Sparkling performer: the comic took home the \u2018Strictly\u2019 title in 2020 (BBC)<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a shame that it\u2019s gone through all these supposed scandals and tabloid stories, because I suppose, in essence, it\u2019s a simple idea. You get some people and you teach them to dance, and get them to fall in love with it. And that\u2019s exactly what happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between Strictly, Extraordinary Portraits and the raft of other TV gigs Bailey has taken on in recent years, it sure feels like he\u2019s come a long way from the counterculture. Last year, he was awarded an MBE. I wonder what Bailey\u2019s younger self would make of this new iteration.<\/p>\n
He mentions a time a few years ago, when he was invited to make a speech at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. It was to mark the centenary of the death of Alfred Russel Wallace, the originator of the theory of evolution, whom Bailey had made a TV programme about. It was also the weekend of Glastonbury. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was preparing for this speech I had to give, and got phoned up randomly by someone on site at Glastonbury, who assumed I was there,\u201d Bailey says. \u201cThey said, \u2018Bill, are you coming up the teepee field?\u2019 And I said, \u2018No, I\u2019m not. I\u2019m not at Glastonbury\u2026 I\u2019m giving a speech at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cLong silence on the phone. All you could hear was bongo drumming and f***ing dancing in the background. And it was just like, ooh, you\u2019ve changed.\u201d <\/p>\n
He smiles, and sort of mock-dramatically thumps his chest. \u201cNot inside, though,\u201d he adds. \u201cI\u2019m still a hippy at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Extraordinary Portraits\u2019 airs Fridays at 7.30pm on BBC One<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-367934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}