Comedian, actor, writer and storyteller Billy ConnollyTim Fraser/The Globe and Mail
"When koalas are coming down with chlamydia, the world's in some state."
Asked about a recent court case involving the decriminalization of prostitution, Billy Connolly follows his comic's stream of consciousness to an alliterative conclusion - koalas and chlamydia. It has something to do with the health of hookers and a (real) case of lovable animals with a sexually transmitted infection down under.
Connolly, a veteran Highlands raconteur with a hippie head of white hair and a rakish Colonel Sanders beard to match, is speaking freely in a corner booth at a Bloor Street café in Toronto. How does he describe himself? "A boulevardier and celebrated man of opinion" is what he would like carved onto his tombstone.
Opinions on what? "Most things, given half a chance," he quips.
He'll have half a chance and more on a cross-Canadian tour that just hit Hamilton before moving on to three nights at Toronto's Massey Hall, beginning Thursday. There the 67-year-old Scottish presenter will roll R's and aim to have audiences rolling in the aisles, with shows that are less comic routines than they are F-bombed rambles. "When I sit down to write comedy, it comes out kind of shallow," Connolly explains. "But when I just invent it, it's funky and good."
Connolly kept a diary for eight years, but the drab content never really came to anything. His wife, Pamela Stephenson, bravely went through the logs for research when she wrote her husband's bestselling biography. "She really lost her will to live," he jokes, commenting on the bland entries. "I write like an eight-year-old Girl Scout: 'Raining again today …' "
A condensed version of Connolly's story skims like so: Young, bull-strong Glasgow boilermaker embarks on career as folk musician. On the road in the 1970s, he mistakenly leaves his banjo in the hotel room, but he does the show regardless, relying on charisma, expletives and a gift for storytelling. Infamously wearing "banana boots," jester boots now on show in a museum, Connolly performs comedic songs and tells jokes, gradually dropping the music for more and more for monologue.
"As my comedy became more complicated, I couldn't find a decent place to stop and pick up an instrument and sing a funny song," he explains, sipping tea. "The act would be lumpy if I tried."
Connolly still plays the banjo, wearing his love for the instrument not on his sleeve but as a simple tattoo on his hand. Asked about Steve Martin, a fellow funny plucker, he whips out a cellphone camera to show off a photo of himself with Martin and banjo legend Tony Trischka. He admits that Martin is the better player of the two comedians. "I think I have a wee edge on the claw-hammer picking," he judges, rubbing his chin, "but he's a great bluegrass player."
Back to the story: Connolly gains fame in 1975. On a televised talk show, he outrageously tells his joke about parking a bicycle in the bum of a partly buried woman. He begins touring sold-out theatres in Britain, but celebrity catches up to Connolly, who falls prey to drink and drugs. His first marriage collapses, but a subsequent marriage in 1989 to New Zealand comedic actress Stephenson helps to straighten him out. A move to Hollywood and an appearance on a Whoopi Goldberg HBO special boosts his status in North America, as does a short-lived stint on the sitcom Head of the Class.
Connolly, who won acclaim for his non-comedic role opposite Judi Dench in the 1997 drama Mrs. Brown, finds regular work these days as an eclectic character actor. "Most of the movies are straight," he says. "I'm not a fan of comedy. The good scripts are out there, I suppose, but they're not coming to me."
And so, onstage at least, Connolly writes for himself, in the moment. "It's an organic process," he says. "I wish I could remember more, but I can't. It's always been that way."
Perhaps he'll work in the bit about koalas and chlamydia - or perhaps not. "It's the second time in Australia," Connolly pipes up, referring to sexually transmitted diseases in the wild. "I heard that the pilchards have herpes."
Oily pilchard fish have herpes - my goodness, who would ever know?
"Pilchard catchers," Connolly retorts confidently. "Pilchard catchers would know."
Billy Connolly plays Toronto Nov. 4-6; Ottawa Nov. 8; Montreal Nov. 9; Halifax Nov. 12-13; Winnipeg Nov. 16; Saskatoon Nov. 18; Calgary Nov. 19; Edmonton Nov. 21; Victoria Nov. 23; and Vancouver Nov. 25-26.