Bill Bailey

Comedian, actor and musician, Bill Bailey is castaway by Kirsty Young.

Lauded for his hugely inventive stand up, Bill has carved out a highly successful career with an altogether atypical approach. He's a familiar face on TV from his regular appearances on quiz shows Have I Got News for You, QI and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

At school he was a gifted pupil who gave up on his education and a pitch-perfect piano student who flunked his music school entrance. He started drifting as a teenager and gave up on university within days of arrival - he says he was looking for the next challenge, and that turned out to be stand-up comedy.

He loved having to think on his feet and found the laughter of strangers intoxicating.

DISC ONE: King Curtis - Memphis Soul Stew
DISC TWO: The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
DISC THREE: Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime
DISC FOUR: English Chamber Orchestra, soloist Murray Perahia - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major (“Coronation”)
DISC FIVE: David Bowie - Rebel Rebel
DISC SIX: Pretenders - Talk of the Town
DISC SEVEN: Enong Jubaedah and Mang Maman - Traditional Javanese Gamelan
DISC EIGHT: New Philharmonia Orchestra with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, conducted by Sir David Willcocks - Gabriel Fauré’s In Paradisum (from Requiem), Op 48

BOOK CHOICE: The collected works - W. Somerset Maugham
LUXURY CHOICE: A pack of cards
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime

Producer: Jane Thurlow

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2008.