REVIEW | Dear Billy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Reviewer - Kathryn
*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review
Everybody knows Billy Connolly. If you don’t - then where have you been?! Born and bred in Glasgow, he’s a national treasure and has paved the way for many Scottish performers and comedians who have found their own voices thanks to his work.
The National Theatre of Scotland’s latest production is a tribute to the Big Yin himself. A love letter told in the words of people up and down the country, collected by a team of researchers and story-gatherers.
Writer and performer Gary McNair brings these anecdotes to life on stage, transforming from persona to persona as he traverses the stage, delivering the stories verbatim, and staying true to the original narrator’s hesitations and misremembered gags.
McNair is joined on stage by musicians Simon Liddell and Jill O’Sullivan who weave atmospheric folksy tunes through the stories, creating an audio tapestry with Billy Connolly at its heart. Claire Halleran’s pub-style set reflects the man himself, including a big neon pair of specs and a neon banana boots chair.
The stories are beautifully told, ranging from laugh-out-loud tales about how Billy Connolly probably wouldn’t say no to a Flump, to emotive stories about a fellow Parkinson’s sufferer who stayed behind to speak to the Big Yin after a show and share some words of consolation and hope. We hear from people who swear hands down that their wee brother was in his class at school (they can’t ALL have been in his class at school), or who worked with him in the shipyards and say he was really rubbish at welding.
Each story is so much more than the anecdote itself. It reflects the lives of the people telling the stories in a snapshot of Scottish culture and history. The show evolves as it tours the country and more stories are collected - no performance is the same.
The affection for Billy Connolly is unmistakable by the audience, the storytellers, and by McNair himself who recollects his own story of meeting the Big Yin and leads the audience in a heart-warming rendition of Connolly’s classic tune “Everybody Knows That”.
At first appearances, it would be easy to mistake Dear Billy as a tribute act, or a series of impressions, but it’s not. It’s a gift. A love letter from the people of Scotland to a man who has shaped our culture and helped us find our own voices. A collective thank you to the legend and hero that is Billy Connolly.
Dear Billy plays its final tour dates at The King’s Theatre, Glasgow on Friday 23, and Saturday 24 June.
