Bill Bailey is one of my favourite stand up comedians and, unusually for me, I was aware of him quite early. Not right at the beginning, but put it this way, the first time I saw him it was in a decent city-centre venue and it only cost me £12.50. Now he's filling stadia, those tickets would cost over £90, and he's presenting great TV programmes left, right and centre! As a fan of his work and knowing he's a Westcountry lad, his book 'My Animals and Other Animals: A Memoir of Sorts' immediately got my attention.
A Menagerie of Memories
Chapter by chapter, 'My Animals and Other Animals' is a loose collection of stories about the pets Bailey's shared his life with and the creatures he's encountered in the UK and travelling around the globe. From excitable puppies to rescue tortoises, escaping cockroaches to vicious chickens - and that's just the animals he's lived with! Bailey's tales also feature British wildlife such as dormice, otters and adders, and the more exotic jaguars, baboons and dwarf minke whales, among others.
A Memoir?
'My Animals and Other Animals' is full of the charm and humanity we've come to expect and enjoy from Bailey, ably illustrating the awe and wonder the natural world inspires in him. But it's really not a memoir. The connection between his life and the pets and wildlife encounters he describes seams to peter out quite quickly and the book loses any sense that it's structured around his biography. To call it a memoir, even 'of sorts', is incredibly misleading. It's actually a collection of light anecdotes about animals he's kept or met with very little to do with his life story. While his passion is endearing and his experiences educational, it's hard to believe I wouldn't have learned more from one of his documentaries. I know Bailey is a great on-stage storyteller, but these written stories left me feeling bored.
How Now Eurasian Owl
No better is this disparity illustrated than in a chapter on The Owl Incident, the story of how Bailey rescued a magnificent Eurasian eagle owl from the menu of a restaurant in China. It was covered in the show 'Qualmpeddler' and was the section I was most looking forward to in the book, especially once I'd realised I wasn't getting the biography I'd expected. But the story is so much better told on stage and in the DVD extras. It remains a great story, but is far more engaging in its earlier format.
Overall
I found this book rather disappointing and am very glad I didn't pay the full £25 cover price for it, because it really isn't worth it. (I couldn't help noticing it was swiftly reduced to 99p on Kindle soon after Christmas, but then so were many celebrity books once they could no longer be easy presents for the hard-to-buy-for.)
Not only isn't it a true memoir as implied, the stories weren't as engaging as I'd hoped either. My mind wondered and I really struggled to get through the hardback. I know Bailey is an entertaining and imaginative on-stage storyteller and a thoughtful and considerate TV presenter, so perhaps the written word just isn't his medium. I think I'll stick to the stand up and documentaries in future.
Now, what next...?
'My Animals and Other Animals: A Memoir of Sorts' by Bill Bailey was published in 2024 by Quercus. This review is based on the hardback version.
