Comments on: Go home, Bill Bailey

By: Shaun Hollingworth

Shaun Hollingworth — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:46:40 +0000

[sings]

Won’t you stay home Bill Bailey, Won’t you stay home ?

I know you done us wronggg…

Bill Bailey won’t you please stay home!

By: Marc Draco

Marc Draco — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:16:56 +0000

Personally, I didn’t like him much anyway, so nothing lost for me there. He always reminded me of that lunatic on the Safestyle windows adverts (who is apparently as crazy as he actually appears).

By: Monitor

Monitor — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:54:37 +0000

I rather like Bill Bailey too, which is why I was disappointed by his silly remarks. There’s no point arguing about the artistic merits of the Mo-toons, but I maintain that the quality varied from poor to rather good. As far as Bailey’s JS:TO remarks are concerned, he is certainly putting the blame in the wrong place.

JS:TO did not “scupper its own intentions” – the fact that it had an uncontroversial and award-winning run in the West End prior to the furore proves that. It worked as intended, for a while. Until its intentions were scuppered by a handful of offence-seeking, attention-hungry fundamentalists.

Bailey blames the show itself for this, and suggests that all artists should be careful not to make the same mistake of upsetting the religious. I think he should be blaming the offence-seekers.

I’m not calling for a boycott. Just saying he’s wrong.

By: Nosemonkey

Nosemonkey — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:19:01 +0000

I’ve seen the Mo toons umpteen times, and I’d say they’re shit. I wouldn’t say they shouldn’t have been published, but I’d certainly say that if I were the commissioning editor on the paper, I’d think carefully about whether the cartoonists deserved payment for such piss-poor efforts.

As for Bailey’s JS:TO remarks, sounds to me like he’s got a valid point. The opera itself is not all about offending Christians, it has a far broader satirical remit. Yet thanks to having offended some Christians (some of whom have gone on to campaign about it), the broader points of the satire have been lost. It doesn’t matter that it had a successful West End run before the controversy icked off – since then it has simply become a focus for debate over religious censorship, rather than what its creators originally intended. Hence “its notoriety has scuppered its own intentions”.

Methinks a bit of an over-reaction. I especially like Andy A’s reaction, wondering whether to boycott Bailey because he doesn’t agree with him. Sounds a tad like the reaction a certain Christian organisation has been known to have to people who don’t agree with them…

By: Mr Flibble

Mr Flibble — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:56:52 +0000

Andrew You just beat to it.

By: Mr Flibble

Mr Flibble — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:55:39 +0000

No Sorry, that was Harry Hill.

By: Andrew Nixon

Andrew Nixon — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:55:35 +0000

That was Harry Hill.

By: Mr Flibble

Mr Flibble — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:52:54 +0000

He did put God into room 101.

So he’s not all bad!

By: Andy A

Andy A — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:01:39 +0000

Bugger! I rather like Bill Bailey. What do I do now? It's always a dilemma. Do you create a personal boycott of someone whose views you find unpalatable, or just say, 'Well, if I boycotted everyone who had views that vied with mine I'd never watch any actor, comedian or singer'? I boycott Mel Gibson, though, sodding homophobe! And what makes it better is that I haven't told him I'm boycotting his films. That'll larn â€im!

By: Andy Gilmour

Andy Gilmour — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 09:58:51 +0000

Maybe the fact he was addressing something calling itself a “Festival of Spirituality” might point us in the direction of an obvious explanation for his comments…

Supernaturalist is as supernaturalist does, even if it is the mighty BB….

ho hum.