Our team

Bill Bailey

Comedian, actor and musician, Bill Bailey has been one of Britain’s most influential celebrities of the 21st Century. With an eclectic career spanning three decades, he had a long-running captaincy on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, a breakthrough role in the ‘Black Books’ TV series in 2000, and was voted The 7th Greatest Stand-up Comic by Channel 4 in 2000 and 2010.

An accomplished musician and composer, “Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra”, had nationwide success in 2009 and used humour and popular music to make the orchestral world more accessible. He is passionate about environmental issues and has made recent documentaries, such as “Baboons with Bill Bailey” and “Bill Bailey’s Jungle Hero”.

We are honoured that Bill agreed to become our patron in 2014, given his long-standing support of our work.

Of Good Vibrations, Bill says:

“I think it’s a fascinating and worthwhile project … many aspects of it strike a personal chord with me. I have a strong connection with Indonesia – I’ve travelled there for many years and during one of these visits I was taught the basics of gamelan and played with a gamelan orchestra.

I’m drawn to the otherness of it, the strangeness and the fact that playing it is unlike any Western musical form. It ebbs and flows, has no real beginning or end, and while playing it I find the concentration required combined with the rippling sound is akin to meditation. It is relatively easy to start playing and get pleasing results, so I can see how it could provide a sense of achievement.”