Billy Connolly Tickets

One of Glasgow's most famous sons, Billy Connolly was brought up by his aunts in a tenement after his mother abandoned him and his sister, Florence, when Connolly was just four. After suffering childhood abuse at the hands of his father, he decided to become a comedian when he was 12, but had to make do with driving a delivery van and working as a boilermaker from the age of 15, having left school with just two qualifications. After a brief stint working on an oil rig in Nigeria, Connolly began folk singing, joining Tam Harvey in The Humblebums. When Harvey left the group, his replacement was Gerry Rafferty, and Connolly often tells stories about how funny Rafferty was; their time together always marked by laughing and joking. When Rafferty decided to pursue a solo career, Connolly was left on his own, and began telling jokes before gigs, something which was noticed by record executive, Nat Joseph, who suggested Connolly drop the folk singing, and concentrate on comedy.

In 1972, Connolly's first stand-up LP (produced by Joseph) was released, and a further double album, featuring his famous routine about The Last Supper, was a commercial success and brought him quick fame. In 1975, he made the first of fifteen appearances on the chat show, Parkinson (which remains a record), which cemented him in the public consciousness, although an attempt at cracking America (he was the support act for Elton John's 1976 US tour) was a disaster, as no-one could understand him. Appearances with the Monty Python crew in numerous collaborations including The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979, 1981) for Amnesty International, brought Connolly to an even wider audience, and he hosted his first An Audience With... show for ITV in 1985. Also in the 1980s, he became one of the faces for Comic Relief, and completed the first of many world tours. In 1989 he married Pamela Stephenson, with whom he'd been living since 1981, and Stephenson went on to write two acclaimed biographies of her husband in 2001 and 2003. In 1991, having moved to the States and won a Green Card, Connolly starred in his own sitcom, Billy, and also featured in his own South Bank Show Special. A breakthrough film role in Mrs Brown, opposite Judi Dench in 1997, earned him a BAFTA nomination, and his other films include Beautiful Joe (2000), White Oleander (2002), The Last Samurai (2003) and Brave (2012). 

Connolly has written three plays, won a BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003, and was made a Freeman of the City of Glasgow in 2010. He has a life-seat at Celtic FC (next to Rod Stewart) and in 2009, demand for tickets for his Scottish tour broke computer systems in Glasgow and Edinburgh. After living in the London, Los Angeles, Malta and Scotland, Connolly and his wife now reside full time in New York City.

Billy Connolly tours the UK in January-March 2012.