IF you were to believe Bill Bailey’s stand-up material then the whimsical comic attended the ‘Bovington Gurney School of Performing Arts and Owl Sanctuary’ and cut his teeth as a crematorium organist.

But the real story behind the 53-year-old’s education and early years is just as fascinating.

Bill actually attended King Edward’s School in Bath and was the only student there to study A-level music under the guidance of teacher Ian Phipps and his wife Lynda, who was a piano teacher and an accomplished organist at one of the city’s churches.

“She was there for any of the pupils who wanted to learn an instrument outside of normal lessons,” said Bill, well known for the cult sitcoms Black Books and Spaced.

“And when I wanted to study music to a higher degree she took me on and it was fantastic.

“She was a great inspiration in many ways. More than being just a teacher, she really encouraged me to go further in terms of performance. I still think of her now. If I’m doing a big gig somewhere and I get a bit daunted, it’s her I think of saying: ‘You can do it’. It’s a testament to how important teachers can be.”

Even when Bill hosted his first comedy night with a friend from school at a venue called Moles Club he combined music and comedy and he has been known for it ever since.

It came from watching the likes of Victor Borge with his family.

Bill added: “Victor Borge was a serious musician and yet he would goof around with a seatbelt on his piano stool and mess around with music. There was something that immediately spoke to me about that.”

But it was Ian and Lynda’s influence that at least made him consider a career as a professional concert musician.

Bill said: “What made me take pause with that was my instrument of choice was the piano which isn’t really an orchestral instrument.

“My cousin is an orchestral trumpet player so when he started to play the trumpet there were lots of opportunities to move around orchestras and play different places throughout Europe.

“Piano is harder because it is very much a solo instrument. So you either pursue that intense career as a pianist or you think about a different instrument.

“In a way it was just as well because it made me focus more on performance and other things that I wanted to do.

“I realised I loved the spoken word in performance and I think if I pursued a musical career I would have been frustrated that I wouldn’t be able to talk.

“And likewise I always like to incorporate music into my stand-up because it’s such a big part of my life.

“When I started out I had a guitar. I taught myself a few chords and it just seemed like the most natural thing to do.

“There was a lot more variety in stand-up then. It was almost like the modern cabaret so I’d share the bill typically in those days with a ventriloquist, a magician, a juggler and a double act.”

Back then when Bill was honing his craft the instrument also felt like a bit of a barrier between him and the audiences – so if a joke fell flat he could play a tune.

But it did not stop him being terrified of his audiences.

Bill, who was in Hot Fuzz, added: "I used to be so nervous in the early days that I’d go on in an almost fugue state of panic.

“Very often when you’re starting out you think: ‘I’ve got about 20 minutes here’ and you get on stage and you realise you’ve done all your material in the first five minutes and then you’re scuppered.

“I still get an adrenalin rush just before I go on. I think every performer needs that little surge, that twinge of excitement.

“I’ve learnt to control the nerves, that’s one thing you do as a performer. You realise how to stay calm and then relax into it.”

Having now performed on the circuit for 20 years Bill is pretty relaxed now but a lot of things still fire him up. So mixed among the whimsy, bizarre observations and musical interludes you will find a great deal of political commentary on this tour.

He said: “I think talking about Britain and British politics has a resonance around the world particularly now we’ve chosen to leave the EU.

“That fascinates people around the world. People are obsessed with it almost.

“So even what would seem to be the most inward looking Brit centric style comedy has a resonance around the world.

“As part of the preparation for this tour I’ve been looking back over what I’ve done in the past 20 odd years and I’ve realised a feature of the shows is about Britishness.

“About what defines us as a nation and what peculiarities we have has become a subconscious, recurring theme in my shows over the years. Our current ‘nervous breakdown’ is an extension of that really.”

But Bill told Weekend the real challenge is President Donald Trump because ‘he’s impossible to satirise’.

He said: “Satire is about exaggerating somebody’s most egregious characteristics – and he does that himself.

“You think: ‘He can’t possibly say anything more outrageous…oh yes, he has. The challenge is to find a way around that and I do it with music. I satirise the national anthem and the bombast of it. It’s an ongoing puzzle for comedians.”

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, have recently decided to stop making fun of Trump because they say under his presidency ‘satire has become reality’ – and Bill tends to agree.

He added: “He really doesn’t care. He’s a kind of black hole. He almost doesn’t have a personality.

“There’s like a strange gap where a person should be. There’s a bunch of rambling opinions, the hair, the golf, the weirdness. There’s nothing there. He’s entirely reactive

“It clearly gets to him when people make fun of him. He’s very thin skinned and narcissistic – so that’s the reason to keep going.

“But whether that has done any good I don’t know. People call him an idiot but there is a kind of crazed method in what he does.

“He churns up the news cycle by tweeting something outrageous and that’s all people talk about for 24 hours.

“And yet while that’s going on there’s drilling happening in the Arctic, environmental protections are being rolled back.”

But do not worry – if the show gets a little heated Bill can always switch the tone by, say, fashioning a symphony from a ringtone or telling the real story of Old McDonald.

Bill said: “One of the reasons I still love doing this is that I’m not limited to one particular style.

“I’ve tried to resist being labelled as this kind of comic or that kind of comic because then I think you then find yourself a bit hemmed in with what you can talk about.

“I’ve always incorporated a topical, satirical element but it hasn’t dominated the shows, neither has the stuff at the other end of the spectrum – the surreal, the tangential, the nonsensical, the absurd which again attracts me. I love all that style of comedy.

“The trick is to blend it together in a swirl of different colours.”

  • Bill Bailey presents Larks in Transit at Parr Hall on March 9 and June 13 and 14. Visit pyramidparrhall.com for tickets