Andrew Bailey (born 1947) is a British

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, character comedian, and musical absurdist from

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. One of the original

alternative comedy Alternative comedy is a term coined in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era. The phrase has had different connotations in different contexts: in the UK, it was used to describe ...

pioneers at London's seminal

Comedy Store The Comedy Store is an American comedy club opened in April 1972. It is located in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip. An associated club is located in La Jolla, San Diego, California. History The Com ...

in the early 1980s, alongside

Rik Mayall Richard Michael Mayall (; 7 March 1958 – 9 June 2014) was an English actor, comedian and writer. He formed a close partnership with Adrian Edmondson while they were students at Manchester University, and was a pioneer of alternative come ...

French & Saunders ''French and Saunders'' is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring comedy duo and namesake Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders that originally broadcast on BBC2 from 1987 to 1993, and later on BBC One until 2017. It is al ...

and

Ben Elton Benjamin Charles Elton is a British comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. One of the major figures in the alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, his early stand-up style was Left-wing politics, left-wing political satire ...

. He has performed at the

Royal National Theatre The National Theatre (NT), officially the Royal National Theatre and sometimes referred to in international contexts as the National Theatre of Great Britain, is a performing arts venue and associated theatre company located in London, England, ...

in London, supported the

Eurythmics Eurythmics were a British New wave music, new wave duo formed in 1980, consisting of Scottish vocalist Annie Lennox and English musician and producer Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Dave Stewart. They were both previously in the Tourists, a band t ...

and

John Hegley John Richard Hegley (born 1 October 1953) is an English performance poet, comedian, musician and songwriter. He has a reputation for wry and surreal humour, mostly performance-oriented or designed for younger audiences, and often sung or acc ...

and others, he has influenced the work of Jerry Sadowitz and

Simon Munnery Simon Munnery is an English comedian. Early life Born in Middlesex, Munnery grew up in Bedmond and was educated at Watford Grammar School for Boys, where he earned four A Levels. He read natural sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge but s ...

. Andrew Bailey has been known to create highly visual performances that take risks on stage in order to provoke audiences. One such example of this is his character Podomovski, whom spoke in gibberish that was translated offstage, by

Paul Merton Paul James Martin (born 9 July 1957), known by the stage name Paul Merton, is an English comedian who is best known as one of the two regular panellists on the television show '' Have I Got News for You''. Known for his improvisation skill, M ...

, and as his performance went on it continued to get weirder. However, the audience were with him every step of the way. Described as being on the "lunatic fringe" and "the King of Dysfunctional

Doo Wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, ...

", Bailey has performed regularly at the

Edinburgh Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featur ...

, and on British television.The Scotsman
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References

1947 births Living people Comedians from Manchester People from Islington (district) Edinburgh Comedy Festival British performance artists English male comedians 20th-century English comedians 21st-century English comedians Comedians from the London Borough of Islington {{UK-comedian-stub