Billy Connolly

The Big Yin visits his fav London guitar shop

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Frailers couldn’t be more tucked away, but it is a favourite of Billy Connolly, the man known by his Scots nickname the Big Yin (“the Big One”)

 

By Jonathan Blackburn

It seems an unlikely place to find Billy Connolly’s favourite banjo shop, which couldn’t be more tucked away.

The term ‘hidden gem’ is overused, but if ever it were apt, Frailers is the place. On a quiet street lined by takeaways in the small industrial town of Runcorn, Cheshire, Frailers has had a host of famous faces come through the door.

The shop seems to go back forever, with rows upon rows of shimmering guitars and banjos, music memorabilia and photos of the many stars who have visited Frailers since it opened in 1979.

Photograph: Brian Smith / The Guardian

Glasgow’s favourite son has made six visits to Frailers, staying for hours at a time, according to Frank Murphy, 82, who opened the shop more than half a century ago and can still be found behind the counter six days a week. A signed picture of Billy takes pride of place on the wall, showing the the Big Yin strumming away in the shop’s banjo room, past shimmering rows of guitars.

Frank says Billy first visited the shop more than 25 years ago to have his famous banjo repaired at the recommendation of folk singer Mike Harding. Frank said: ”Billy came in and I thought, ‘I know this face.’

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Scottish comedy’s plight is no laughing matter

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Amid the coronavirus crisis, grassroots comedy in Scotland faces potential ‘extinction’ without a lifeline from the government, writes Brian Ferguson.

Can you remember the first time you saw yourself reflected back from a television screen or at the cinema?

It’s quite vivid in my memory as an awkward, hapless schoolboy, watching Gregory’s Girl at home in the mid-1980s. I was agog at not how achingly funny it was, from almost the first frame to the last, but also how true to life it felt to the harsh realities of teenage years when almost everything feels like a total mystery.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Gregory’s Girl recently, partly because it is 40 years old next year. It is undoubtedly a touchstone for my generation, but is still seen as one of the greatest Scottish films of all-time. Director Bill Forsyth is revered as one of the nation’s leading filmmakers, not just for Gregory’s Girl, which was famously honoured in the opening ceremony for the London Olympics in 2012, but for his two other best-known movies, Local Hero and Comfort and Joy. All three comfortably fit into the category of comedy.

Yet 40 years on, the current crop of Scottish comics have had to go into battle to try to secure official recognition for their art form for the first time and a share of the £107m lifeline funding to secure the future of arts and culture north of the border. I’ve come across some bizarre scenarios, but the sight of Scottish stand-ups pleading for fair treatment from the government of a country of Billy Connolly, Frankie Boyle, Still Game, Chewin’ the Fat, Elaine C Smith and Karen Dunbar is right up there.

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BBC to dedicate a night to the iconic Billy Connolly with three documentaries

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Billy Connolly: Life, Death and Laughter and Billy Connolly: Made In Scotland are both airing on BBC tonight. Heaven for fans of the comedian

BBC is dedicating an entire night to ‘The Big Yin,’ better known as Billy Connolly.

Starting at 10pm tonight, Billy Connolly: Life, Death and Laughter follows the iconic comedian as he returns to Glasgow’s famous Kings Theatre – where his journey into comedy first began – to talk life, death and laughter.

The feature looks back on Connolly’s past and ahead to the future, covering all elements of his unusually packed existence – how he got started, his approach to comedy, his Scottish roots and how Parkinson’s disease is the latest thing he is having to laugh at.

Later on this evening, Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland airs at 11.05pm with part one taking a uniquely ‘Billy’ approach to biography – part shaggy dog tale, part self-portrait, with a lot of jokes, personal archive and a few famous faces thrown in between.

The second part of the documentary – which airs immediately after the first episode finishes – finds the comedian back in the Scotland of his childhood, where he reveals that knitted woolly swimming trunks were not a figment of his imagination.

That’s a good night in if you’re a fan of the legendary comedian.

Source: BBC to dedicate a night to the iconic Billy Connolly with three documentaries | JOE is the voice of Irish people at home and abroad