Billy Connolly - A BAFTA Life in Pictures

Born and raised in Glasgow, Billy Connolly left school at 15

and took on a range of odd jobs

before starting his career in entertainment.

He soon developed a cult following for his comedy, but it wasn't

until a 1975 performance on the BBC Parkinson show that he began

to get film offers, and his first big-screen appearance

was alongside Richard Burton in Absolution.

Whilst he continued with smaller film roles and television work,

it wasn't until 1997, playing opposite Judi Dench in Mrs Brown,

that Connolly received widespread recognition for a dramatic role,

earning a BAFTA nomination for Leading Actor.

Since then, he's proved a distinctive character actor

and an accomplished voice performer,

with roles in Beautiful Joe, The Man Who Sued God

and, most recently, Pixar's Brave.

He'll next be seen in Dustin Hoffman's directing debut Quartet

and as the dwarf king in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy.

BAFTA Scotland has bestowed its highest honour on Billy Connolly

for Outstanding Contribution to Television and Film.

This is his life in pictures.

APPLAUSE

We're going to talk about your life in pictures and we're going

to talk about, sort of, early experience of films and movies.

I mean, did you go to the films when you were a boy?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I went to, er...

..matinees and all that, you know? Like, when I was a kid.

And at the Western, in Partick.

The Standard, the Tivoli and the Rosevale...

and, er, it was good. I loved them. I thought it was amazing.

Did you think that you might, yourself, end up on screen?

I mean, was that...?

-You know, because a lot of kids do dream of being films stars.

-Yeah...

..I did. I...and I sound,

I always sound, kind of, I, kind of, presume that I sound, kind of...

..big headed and overconfident but I, kind of, dreamt it.

-Everything I did and I've done, I dreamt it before.

-Oh.

I, kind of, saw it happening. I aimed at it and got it.

Although I'm not an ambitious kind of man,

I have been dragged screaming into it most of the time.

But when you, your first, sort of, major film role

was in Absolution with Richard Burton.

Yeah, I just met him that day.

And I, kind of, didn't know what to make of him

because he's the biggest star I'd ever met, you know? And...

but he was being very personable, very...

pally and chatty and...

he must've thought I was real standoffish.

I was just, kind of, looking at him all the time, you know?

Or he thought I was mentally ill or was stoned!

I looked like I was, kind of, stoned, "Whoa."

And back in the 70s, I mean, Burton was, probably, certainly one of the biggest stars in the world.

The biggest star in the world, yeah! Very good.

And the funniest thing was I was drunk then and he was sober!

LAUGHTER

BAT CLACKING

Hey, Dad!

What do you want?

Anything doing?

I beg your pardon?

Have you any odd jobs up at the school?

Chief cook, bottle washer - you know the kind of thing.

There are no current vacancies and if there are they are generally

advertised in the local town journal, which is ten miles away.

Are you the gaffer? How about a gardener?

I could do you a lovely rock garden. Wee alpine flowers and waterfalls.

-I think we can look after ourselves very well, thank you.

-Very good.

And a Merry Christmas to you too!

I mean, it's a pretty big thing

to be in a film with Richard Burton, isn't it?

-Did you not feel that at the time?

-I did...

but it's like all of these things, you know?

Because I've been with a few stars now and I've always been the same.

Like, it's a shock when you first hear it, like Tom Cruise,

or whoever it is, but as soon as you've met them it goes away.

It's, you know, because normally they are pretty nice people and...

I mean, after Absolution there was the series...

You did quite a lot of concert films

and you did some comedy with Whoopi Goldberg in the States,

I mean, those were all quite big things -

you were working a bit in the states -

-and then along comes Mrs Brown.

-Aye.

Directed by John Madden, written by Jeremy Brock,

and, of course, this extraordinary relationship

between Queen Victoria and her gillie.

Now, what did you know about John Brown before you made the film?

Nothing much.

Except that he, he had...

..had it off with the Queen, you know?

LAUGHTER

I mean, what else do you want to know?

LAUGHTER

You know? His telephone number? It's just...and it was amazing

because I was doing a series about the Scottish art

and the director of that said,

"Listen, I've got this property here...er...

..it's about John Brown, are you familiar with John?"

I said, "What, the Queen Victoria John Brown?"

He said, "Yeah." And we were standing up behind the palace, in Edinburgh,

where the government now is,

we were up on that green hill at the back, there, looking down.

And he said, "Would you play John Brown if I offered it to you?"

I said, "Like that," I said, "I'd love it,"

and he said, "I've got Judi Dench..."

and I said, "Oh, we've got it. It's amazing. I'll do it in a heartbeat."

-What are those?

-What?

-Those! Over there. There!

-Ah...Craobhan geanmchno-fhiadhaich

"Craobhan..." Oh, how can I possibly say that with a straight face!

I'm thinking of publishing my Highland journals.

Are they worth reading?

-I'm told so.

-By whom?

Sir Henry Ponsonby tells me they're charming.

What does he know about the Highlands?

He has been attending at Balmoral for many years.

That hardly makes him an expert.

His remarks were directed at the quality of writing, not its subject.

I don't groom a horse to have it admired by others,

I groom it because it needs grooming.

I do not do it for others but Ponsonby thinks they are good.

Just say what you have to say, woman!

What other people think shouldn't matter to you.

Of course I should say what I have to say, I always do!

Well, if it's a good opinion you're looking for,

he's the very man to oblige you.

What Mr Ponsonby was appreciating was their literary merit.

A skill not intimately associated with the knowledge of grooming.

At one point I thought she fancied me, you know?

And I learned a great deal at that moment, you know, about,

kind of, being the thing instead of learning the words and just doing it.

We were doing the eightsome reel and she was across from me,

looking a bit flushed, you know?

And she's giving me the eye, and I thought,

"Oh, my God, Judi Dench is coming on to me...

LAUGHTER

"What I going to do? In front of all these people as well!"

And we danced a wee bit more and then she's doing it again

and I thought, "Oh, Christ, it's getting worse."

And then it dawned on me that

it was Queen Victoria was fancying me, you know? And...

and so I copied her, I fancied her back!

-And it worked!

-And it worked brilliantly, yeah.

Have you ever acted with anybody who stayed in character out...

-You know, when the cameras weren't rolling?

-Yeah...

I think it's a serious pain in the arse.

LAUGHTER

I think it's pretentious crap.

Quite a lot of very well-known actors do do it.

I know but I think it's indulgent. I could be...

that's very unfair of me to say that, maybe that's how they do it.

Obviously, that's the way they get it on but, like, if I'm

in the trailer and I like hanging with the crew on these films, and...

..and they do great things.

They build great things and they make great things,

and you can always get things from them.

You know, they make belts and shoes...

I've got a great pair of shoes from The Hobbit.

-Made of stingray.

-Wow.

-Yeah, they're brilliant.

-Soft or...?

Yeah...and they put frog inserts on my cowboy boots.

-If you hunt them down they can do things for you!

-Is this legal?

Yeah, oh, I'm sure it's terribly illegal but the...

all those guys and I like the crew generally,

I generally get on very well with them, and I always say to them,

"Listen, when I'm on my way from my trailer to do the gig, you know,

to actually act, don't talk to me,

don't tell me jokes and all that, you know?

When I'm on the way back, fair enough.

Or when I'm hanging out I'll talk to you and blah-blah-blah,"

and with drivers I say,

"If I get into the backseat I don't want to talk,

"if I get in the front seat we'll rabbit away,"

because I've got lines to go over.

But with the trailer thing and the crew

I've been trying to become the guy...

I've got into what he was doing that day,

-I know what he had for breakfast and all that.

-So, it's a bit Method?

-A bit Method acting?

-A bit Methody, yeah.

-Yeah.

-Just trying to get...

It was my wife taught me how to do it.

She was talking about it yesterday, she said...

It sounds ridiculous, I was on location somewhere

and I phoned her up and I said, "Listen, how do you act?"

LAUGHTER

"What do you do? What's, what's, what's...?

"This is too hard for me."

And she said, "You know, you'll have to get into the, you know, the...

"You have to get beyond just learning the words and avoiding the furniture.

"Just...get deeply into who he is.

"Think about what he had for breakfast

"and how his wife treated him that day, and where she is, and...

"how does he feel about her, and blah-blah-blah, whatever you like.

"You can add kids and...

"they'd be giving you a bad time, and blah-blah-blah, and you can...

"work that into your head, and then come out in that mood."

-The next film, Still Crazy, which is...

-Oh, God, what a laugh!

This is a film about, I don't know how many of you have seen it,

but it's a film about a band who get back together after, oh, decades...

Aye, it's good cos it's the sweaty sock and of rock 'n' roll.

It's good, it's very good.

And there's that whole, sort of, thing about being on the road

and being in the bus, and all this, which, you know, you would be...

I've done it all my life. I've done it all my adult life so it's...

it comes quite easy, you know?

Can you believe it?! What I strayed into? Night of the Living Dead?

Hughie!

Oh, Jesus Christ, you big sack of shite, Beano Baggot!

Oh, where's Tony? Oh-ho, Tony boy!

Look at you! You big bollocks!

Let me see, let me see. Cuban heels!

Look, he's been walking downhill since 1969!

I have made herb tea for everyone and also dried fruit.

You all get fat if you just eat Mars bars.

Oh, well, Astrid, my wee Nordic charmer.

-So, you and Ray went the distance?

-Are you still a road dog, Hughie?

No, the last tour I did was ten years ago!

I did it with Aerosmith but they've cleaned up their act -

it's all wheat grass juice and pumpkin seeds!

Hope you guys are still crazy or I'm out of here.

Hey, right, I've a wee surprise for you.

Strange fruit - rock musicians, poets, legends - this is your life!

-Pow!

-Except for these, that's my life!

Some memories in here.

-Don't believe it.

-Oh, hello!

How did these get in here?

Groupies usually keep them on the mantelpiece, they sent ours back.

Hey, look at this bugger!

Hello, testing, testing, one...two...three!

Here, Ray, asked Astrid if she recognises this one!

Hey, give me my horns, man!

Hey, Karen! Woo-ha! Woo-ha!

They used to be people called the Chicago Plaster Casters who...

..did that, you know, to rock stars.

They were groupies from Chicago

and they made plaster casts of rock stars' willies.

So, they made, sort of, like, a global collection?

Yeah, sort of, you know, had them around the walls,

like a big game hunter!

-LAUGHTER

-Well, yes!

And so we just copied them, yeah. But they were a good crowd of guys.

Great crowd of guys to work with.

I suppose, in some ways, the one thing that is different between...

I was talking to a comedian who now has a film career the other day

and he was saying that sometimes people that have done stand-up

find it quite difficult to do scenes with other actors

because the tendency is always, you know, to want to do,

get the funniest lines, da-da-da, to get the limelight

and did you find that ever?

No, it's never ever bothered me

but I've always felt the place is awful crowded.

I'm used to having loads of room

but when there's another three or four people there...

it seems helluva crowded to me.

But that's the only thing that ever bothers me

because I've, I like other funny guys.

I've never been jealous of other people's laughs.

Other guys getting laughs and all that, you know?

I'd have to be kicked into action.

I'd rather stand and listen to them being funny, you know? It's...

I've never been jealous or envious of people getting a good laugh.

It's funny, when you're working with actors they sometimes say,

"There's a laugh on page seven," you know?

And you go, "Oh, really?"

LAUGHTER

"Canny here it." LAUGHTER

And you... And sometimes I have actually gone and said,

"Well, look, do you fancy doing the joke tonight and I'll feed you,

"I'll give you the feedline and you do the punchline?", and we do that.

You always get in trouble for it from the director, you know?

For messing around with the script

and they take that as messing around with the audience.

I don't because I think when you tell a joke in a play -

the chair, the table, the glass, they've all got a part in the joke.

Everything that's on that stage is part of that joke.

It's part of everything you do, you know? Everything is everything and...

So, you can split it up between you. You can... And that's all.

It's not an important thing.

We're coming towards a film called is The Man Who Sued God.

Now, The Man Who Sued God seems to me,

as soon as I heard about it and then, and saw it,

realise that, actually, the premise

was like something from one of your, you know, monologues or something.

Because the basic idea, there's this guy... Well, you explain why...

Aye, he's...a shrimp fishermen, a prawn fisherman, and...

he has borrowed the money from his brother for his business,

his brother's a lawyer, I think, and...

..lightning strikes my boat and ruins my business,

and destroys my boat, and hurts me terribly, and...

the insurance won't cover me because it was an act of God...

..and so... I sue God...

..because I think it's a load of nonsense.

Why don't we call things by their real names?

An act of storm, an act of weather, an act of lightning?

The names of the things

that have ruined the lives of my co-plaintiffs?

Because it's customary to call them acts of God.

Would that be because God has a certain ring to it?

There's a certain moral authority that exists only in the name of God?

No.

He's knocked off your copyright! Haven't you, Mr Piggott?

Would you say, Mr Piggott,

that the sinking of the Titanic was an act of God?

I beg your pardon? That's rather before my time!

Well, it was a ship that struck an iceberg and...

-Perhaps you saw the film?

-Yes, oh, that's right, isn't it?

Yes, and the orchestra played that lovely little tune

as they went down. # Da-da... #

I don't think it was one of ours, the Titanic...

It was deemed an act of God.

Well, I'm not surprised, an unassessable risk,

an iceberg, who would have thought?

And yet the insurance companies paid out.

MURMURING

-Did they?

-Yes, they did.

-Really?

Yes, in order to avoid the bad publicity.

Now, there's a funny thing!

If you ever see it, there's a dog in it...

It's a blue heeler,

it's an Australian sheepdog and they've got eyes like human beings.

You know, the eyes, you know how dog's eyes are slightly to the side?

Theirs aren't, theirs are at the front and it used to...

it used to sit on the boat and stare at me,

and it made me, kind of, jittery, you know?

And I began to think I, kind of, knew it from somewhere, you know?

LAUGHTER

"Do I are you money or something?" LAUGHTER

But there was a bit in it,

I had to throw the dog off the jetty into the sea and...

and there was... Because I forgot there's sharks and stuff in there.

And sharks finds dogs very tasty!

And he... And then I nip down and I jump in the boat, and I...

and I leant out and I grabbed the dog, and grabbed it,

and it was never the same, that dog, it never looked at me the same.

It had a wee squinty look at me.

It was weighing me up now, you know?

I could see it was working out how much I weighed, you know?

So it could have me over the side, it was...

For the whole movie I was checking it out. It was a bit scary.

Now, you...

have taken on some much darker roles as well.

I mean, that's, that may have an interesting premise

but it is, fundamentally, it's quite...

but you were in Peter Kosminsky's White Oleander

-playing quite an unpleasant character, actually.

-Yeah.

Well, I started to get bits and pieces like that

where I die quickly but I'm the guy who has to die

so as the story can go on.

In this case you were, actually,

you are cheating on Michelle Pfeiffer's character...

Yeah. I must've been off my head! CHUCKLING

-Yeah.

-It was obvious you are going to have to have

some kind of punishment.

The audience would expect it, wouldn't they?

Yeah, it was...

it was a lovely piece and we had to at one point, to...

..improvise...

an argument in a hotel room and...

..and we just went for it, screaming and shouting,

and she was a wee bit shy at first,

and I came roaring in, swearing and shouting and bawling.

And I think I gave her a fright, you know?

And...she got right into it very quickly, and it was lovely...

but I remember wondering if I was doing the right thing at the time

because I...

I... This sounds ridiculous but I had said, "Artsy fartsy,"

at one point, offstage, and she looked offended by it.

And I thought, "What?

"You're offended by, 'artsy fartsy'?"

And so when it came to the improvisation

I just tore a strip off it and she lost about seven layers of skin!

And... But, so, she responded really.

She, I think she got angry at me and...

..which is exactly what I was looking for

cos they were just doing the sound from next door, it wasn't on film.

And it was really... It was a lovely feeling.

And, of course, you did The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise as well.

He's another big star.

Yeah, he's a great guy.

He's a lovely guy and...

..it's funny, nobody seems to like him.

LAUGHTER

You know, when you see him talked about on television

they say the most awful things about him

because he stood Oprah Winfrey's couch, for Christ's sake!

Maybe it's to do with the other thing, the Scientology bit.

The Scientology?

Well, what if, what if it was Judaism, would they be the same?

You know? I find the whole thing a bit suspect.

I think there's a lot of jealousy runs...

that's in the middle of that argument, you know? And...

I mean, you can be a Scientologist, if you please,

it's quite illegal to be a Scientologist.

Personally, I think it's crap but...

LAUGHTER

..but then, personally, I think religion's crap, you know?

I was... I talk to my audience about it all the time.

Do you know what kind of scientist he is?

No, I don't, I was far too busy making arrangements for you three,

I didn't have time for chitchat!

Hello! Oh, my goodness!

Look at you! You must be Violet? Do you remember me?

I don't suppose so, you were just a little baby at the time.

And, Klaus, we've never met! How do you do?

What a firm grip - like a Burmese python! And, Sunny, little Sunny.

You look so much like your dear mother.

Thank you very much, Mr Poe, I'll take it from here.

-Perhaps I should come inside?

-Oh, by all means!

You could help us pick out the gut worms

from the bowel of the Viscan Boa.

Children, remember,

if you need me at any time you can reach me by phone or fax.

Good day.

(Well, we got rid of him, didn't we?) Come in, come in!

There's not much time and we have to pack.

"Pack"?

It was a great cast, wasn't there?

Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman, in fact, appears.

So, is that where you met Dustin Hoffman?

No, I never met him during it. I never met Meryl Streep either.

In actual fact, I went in a huff, they had a...

..they had a premiere in New York and...

..I...

I went up there, and I was on my own, and I went in and...

and the director said, "Go and speak to that woman, over there,

"some journalist, this big idiot woman," and she said...

and she was obviously disappointed she hadn't got Meryl Streep, you know?

And she said, "What's your name?"

And I said, "Connolly, Billy Connolly."

And she said, "You're in this?"

I said, "Have you seen it?"

And she said, "Well, no."

And I turned on my heel and went home.

I was upset.

I tend to be like that, I let myself down sometimes but the...

but I really loathe it, you know?

I was interviewed the other day, I couldnae believe my ears,

in New York, by the Foreign Journalists Association

and they are the ones who decide who gets the Golden Globes,

and this big skinny woman...

she came up and she said, "You are so funny...

"You are making us all laugh...

"..have you ever thought of stand up comedy?"

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

I said, "I have, have you ever considered journalism?"

LAUGHTER

The Lemony Snicket, the children's novels,

A Series of Unfortunate Events,

I mean, this character that you play in it,

did you devise a back story for him?

No, I hadn't read anything about it.

I decided just to go with what I've got.

The answer is invariably in the script.

Yeah.

You know? It's like The Hobbit,

when I went to do The Hobbit...

..Peter Jackson said, "Have you read The Hobbit?"

I said, "No, and I don't like people who have."

LAUGHTER

Does that not...? Was there not a certain chill in the air after that?

A certain frost came on in the room!

But I wanted to tell him that when I was younger, in Glasgow,

being a hairy person, down at the Scotia Bar and all those places,

there was two distinct camps, there was the Tolkien people

and the Incredible String Band people...

and I was one of the Incredible String Band people,

and I didn't like the Tolkien people.

With their corduroy jackets and their book, and the kind of people

who one leg can fold round the other one twice, you know those guys?

LAUGHTER

You get a lot of them at Edinburgh Festival, you know?

A big armful of pamphlets and, "Have you seen any shows?", you know?

They said, "Oh, wasn't that directed by Sikorsky..."

LAUGHTER

And the Tolkien guys were all like that.

The women were all, their hair was all shut at the front, you know?

Sticking out!

LAUGHTER

Not for me. Not my cup of tea.

I was more the Incredible String Band and the blues, and bluegrass, and...

..living things. And I was always suspicious of people who...

who were all upset about a war between Ginks and Gonks, you know?

Come on, give me a break.

And the answer, as I say, is invariably in the script anyway...

and it's stood me in good stead over these years.

And when I spoke to Peter Jackson he agreed wholeheartedly.

-Because you're playing...

-I said, "I'm not here to make a book."

-You know?

-But you are, you're the Dwarf King, aren't you?

I'm the king, I'm a King Dwarf, yeah.

Dain Ironfoot and he's a real badass -

rides a pig and kills people with an axe and...

and I love him!

I absolutely love him and I can't tell you much about him

because I'm always getting in trouble for talking about him,

but they don't tell me what I've not talk about...you know?

Like, I can't talk about the script, I don't know the script!

I only get it in little wee bits.

Any time I speak about it they go,

-"Oh, I see you were talking about the..."

-No, no, no, we won't...

and you're not, you're not in this Hobbit film, you're in the one's...?

I'm in a much better one that follows the first one!

LAUGHTER

But you've done...

I mean, talking about being the Dwarf King in The Hobbit

-but you've also done lots of voices for animations and...

-Yeah!

And, of course, recently you've been King Fergus in Brave!

Oh, yeah, that's a joy.

People are really liking Brave and they like my part in it.

It's good, it was a good part. It's a kind of...

It's a weird thing to do because you can do it completely alone,

animated film, you go in and you do your bit

but you can actually change the story because you're first...

..the stories written and you get it on...

..the script is tacked to cardboard - why, I'll never know -

but a sheet of cardboard at a time and up it comes.

And you do the lines six or seven different ways,

and then the director will say...

"..I liked that, kind of, sad one, do that one again.

And do that rough, throaty one you did, yeah."

And then he'll say, "Oh, I like it when you laughed there,

"could you do more laughing?" So, you do more laughing and he goes,

"Oh, great, laugh more!" So, you laugh uproariously and...

but the scene isn't about that, and so they'll rewrite the scene

because you're doing it so well, you know, in sound.

And they have a camera, which is filming you, a video camera,

and they incorporate your own facial movements into the drawn fella.

So, it's much more of a performance?

It's much more of a performance than you might think, once you get into it.

Once you get over the initial weirdness of it.

And they ask you to do some weird stuff.

Like, my guy only had one leg, a bear has eaten his leg off,

and so he has a wooden leg but...

And the scene is in the movie,

but he's having a sword fight with some other guys

and somebody chops his wooden leg off in the middle of the fight,

and he rolls down the hill making a noise like...

..you're rolling down a hill with one leg.

LAUGHTER

And it's quite hard to do! I mean, I never thought of it.

You know, it's one of those stage directions,

"He rolls down the hill making a noise as if he has one leg."

And you go, "What?"

I had a conversation with some actors about that once

and somebody, he was lying, of course, as actors often do,

but he said the worst stage direction he's ever seen on a script was,

"He enters the room with an expression on his face

"that suggests he has a cousin in Canada."

LAUGHTER

I think I can do that one!

Now, Quartets, which is just about to open

but Quartet is a film in which you have a role

but as, indeed, one of a quartet,

it's about retired musicians living in a home

and it's one of these films, from a play by Ronald Harwood,

that is about an older generation

but not an older generation just seen as the people in the corner,

I mean, absolutely the protagonists in the centre of the film.

-Yeah, and I'm the baby.

-And you're the baby, that's right!

Yeah, I'm the youngest one in the film. Apart from Sheridan Smith.

But it's a lovely, lovely piece. It's about staying alive.

It's not about dying, it's about trying to stay alive.

And still doing what you did.

I mean, because they are opera singers.

Yeah, and it's all real musicians in it.

The actors are just actors

but the guys who are playing the musicians are actual musicians

and is lovely because most of them hadn't had a phone call

for about 20 years, you know?

Especially the trumpet player, who's amazing.

He's about 83 or 84, or something, he hadn't had a phone call.

He used to be Frank Sinatra's trumpet guy

and nobody phoned him for 20 years.

But they're all like that, all the cellists and everything.

No, no, the cellist's a busy guy but the guy who plays clarinet,

he hadn't had a gig in years and years. It was a joy.

And the lady singers all from chorus lines

from back choruses from years ago,

and they are all brilliant, you know? And it was an absolute joy.

But it's not about...

Because they're in a old folks' home you would think it was a sad movie,

and it's got sad moments, but it's actually about staying alive and...

And don't die until you're dead, you know?

And in the foreground, so you have all these musicians but also in the foreground you have

the former quartet who have sung together in operas.

So, that's Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins and Tom Courtenay,

and you, sort of, all playing off each other.

Yeah, we're supposed to be getting this Rigoletto...

piece together for a concert to keep the home open

and we got it together, we did it, in real life, we got singing lessons.

We all went.

We sounded good. We didn't sound good like opera singers,

we sounded good like old guys singing, you know?

It was a good noise.

And Dustin came to see us doing it one day, one Saturday morning,

and I could see he was going to cry. His lip was going, you know?

And I knew he was deeply moved by it, and he said,

"That's in, we're definitely doing it."

He said, "I was going to use professional singers over you,"

he said, "but that's in, that's Brilliant." But...

..our song comes at a very, very end, as the credits are coming up,

and his son Jake, Dustin's son Jake,

suggested that they went back to the original idea of...

and I think it was right... Cos it ends in a flourish.

And it's almost like a timeless moment, isn't it?

Yes, now, if we been two thirds of the way through or halfway through

I would have said, "Keep us singing," you know? And...

..the funniest thing is, we're introduced onstage

and everybody goes crazy but what has actually happened

was we had just done the quartet in the room, we had just sang it

and what you see is the applause we get from it and then...

..the heavenly voices coming, the operatic singers.

But you know that you did it for real, even if we don't hear it.

Yeah, we did it for real. We know we did it, yeah.

The impression you're up to no good.

Because I'm normally up to no good and, please, call me Wilf.

We've done this, remember, you don't have a buttonhole, Wilf.

Why do you persist in flirting with me, Wilf?

Because you're a cracker, a thing of beauty.

You're not a bimbo or a chick, or any of those awful things,

you're one of the rarest of species...

You're a woman, Lucy Cogan.

Well, I'm flattered, but I have professional ethics to uphold.

Ah, throw caution to the wind!

What if we were to make beautiful music together?

-The husband would never know!

-That's reassuring, Wilf!

-Think about it, eh?

-No, Wilf.

-No-one would ever know.

-I will know, Wilf.

Older man, vintage wine, seasoned wood.

Did you say "wood"?

Now, we've got an unusual way to end Life In Pictures,

not the way we usually do but we're actually going to have, now,

a special presentation and I'm going to invite onto the stage,

to make these special presentation, Kevin Bridges.

Oh!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-How's it going, pal? Nice to meet you.

-Good to meet you! Jesus.

This is BAFTA's highest award,

which is for the Outstanding Contribution to Television and Film.

APPLAUSE

Congratulations, Billy, and, also, thank you for being an inspiration

and, on behalf of most modern comics,

I think you're still the top man, so, well done and great to meet you.

-Oh, thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

This is a delightful thing, especially coming from Scotland.

I've been nominated for loads of things...

LAUGHTER

And I've got bugger all! LAUGHTER

But, genuinely, to get this from Scotland it's...

I almost said it breaks my heart. It's...

It just hits me somewhere where I live.

HE SNIFFS AND SIGHS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd