Billy Connolly (2020 [2019]) Tall Tales & Wee Stories

I’m not a big fan of Billy Connolly, but I do know how to spell the Big Yin’s name. The funny thing is never that funny. I think I’ve already told you the tale of a pal of mine, a taxi driver, she could be quite opinionated. She was driving him to Drymen and he was talking some pish about Scotland and she left him at the side of the road. He’d the last laugh by becoming a national icon like the Queen Mother but with a beard and Parkinsonism. She got really bad arthritis. But that’s another story.

Billy’s not got long to go. He’s hot now. He could shit in a bucket and sell it as a work of art. Over the years I’ve got to like Billy more. Laughter is contagious. You’re already primed to laugh when you are with other people like you, and all you need is that spark. Billy Connolly was good at what he did. He was a storyteller. This is his last cry. He’s giving it the big welly. Here are all my secrets, he’s telling you, but I don’t have any secrets. I’m just like you. That’s his secret.

On the page his stories don’t resonate in the same way, because reading is a private—one-to-one—rather than a public experience. A different kind of energy. You look at Laurel and Hardy and you start laughing. You listen to Billy Connolly and you smile.

The Old Woman on the Bus, for example, is a story set on my home town, Clydebank. The familiarity makes me smile. This is someone I know.

The Bicycle is the story he told on Parkinson before he got it. The story that made him, but I didn’t laugh. Not then, not now.

This man, he says, ‘How’s the wife?’

The other one says, ‘Ah, she’s deid.’

He says, ‘Wha?’

The other one says, ‘Deid. In the ground. I murdered her, I’ll show you if you want.’

He says, ‘Aye, yeah, show me.’

…He says, ‘Is that her?’

He says, ‘Aye.’

He says, ‘What did you leave her bum sticking out for?’

He says, ‘I need somewhere to park, ma bike.’    

When Billy Connolly told that story on English telly he outgrew Scotland. He went on to conquer the world. We all know who he is, because he’s familiar Tall Tales & Wee Stories. Read on.