Comedian Bill Bailey said he is \u201cso proud to be British\u201d following an appearance at the Last Night Of The Proms.<\/p>\n
The 60-year-old performed Leroy Anderson\u2019s The Typewriter at the event on Saturday, where he played the historic piece of office equipment as though it were a musical instrument.<\/p>\n
He told the PA news agency: \u201cIt was very nerve-racking. It\u2019s a hugely prestigious gig and institution.<\/p>\n
Bill Bailey backstage at the Royal Albert Hall (Jeff Moore\/PA)<\/p>\n
\u201cJust before I went on, I got a message, a lovely message from my dad who\u2019s in the audience and he said, \u2018Mum would have been so proud.\u2019 That\u2019s the message. So I was thinking about that on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event at the Royal Albert Hall followed a day of protesting in London, which saw at least 25 people arrested at Tommy Robinson\u2019s \u201cUnite the Kingdom\u201d demonstration, according to the Metropolitan Police.<\/p>\n
Asked about the celebratory event amid a day of civil unrest, Bailey told PA: \u201cSomething like this can really bring people together in a positive way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think times like this\u2026 it shows that power of community, the power to bring people together, but it has a kind of a really communal power, it strengthens bonds between people in a way that is intangible, something which goes back to the very first music on Earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as we figured out how to knock a rock together, or hum, or create music, or imitate sounds of nature, we were creating sounds that bound us together as a people, and that\u2019s still true today, even more so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roger Taylor and Sir Brian May from Queen (Jeff Moore\/PA)<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI\u2019m very patriotic. I mean, I\u2019m very proud to be British and I think there\u2019s so many qualities of Britishness that actually are demonstrated here tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s, firstly, a tremendous sense of belonging, being part of a bigger thing, coming together, feeling a sense of pride in our country, but also, it\u2019s about community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about a sense of belonging and good humour, that\u2019s one of the great things about Britishness. I mean, that\u2019s one of the great things about Britishness, I would say that\u2019s one of our great qualities\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked if the Proms have made him feel proud to be British, he added: \u201cOf course, it\u2019s hugely powerful. You see people waving flags and having fun, coming together to celebrate something like this, which really stirs the soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also at the event, soprano Louise Alder performed the patriotic song Rule, Britannia!, which almost had its singing portion scrapped by the BBC in 2020 following controversy over its perceived historical links with colonialism and slavery.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on this, Bailey said: \u201cA lot of these songs come with history don\u2019t they, a bit of baggage, but I guess most people are able to see them in context i.e when they were written.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, of course, you can look at it now and say these songs are problematic, but they\u2019re still stirring songs, they\u2019re still stirring tunes, and I think people are able to separate the context of the time that they were written and the stirring nature of the tune that we hear today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Queen\u2019s Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Alder for a rearrangement of their hit track Bohemian Rhapsody, which turned 50 this year.<\/p>\n
West End star Sam Oladeinde performed vocals for the six-minute song, which was originally written and sung by the late Queen singer Freddie Mercury.<\/p>\n
He told PA: \u201cI was terrified, but it was exhilarating and I think actually knowing that there were so many people on stage that had their heart in the evening, and in that particular number, felt really like my rock.<\/p>\n
Soprano Louise Alder backstage at the Royal Albert Hall (Jeff Moore\/PA)<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to turn around and Brian May being there was just otherworldly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sir Brian told the BBC backstage: \u201cIt was very emotional, too emotional\u2026 I missed a couple of things, which I would have loved to get better, but the overall feeling was great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elim Chan conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and there were solo performances from Alder and trumpeter Alison Balsom, who is retiring from performing at the age of 46.<\/p>\n
The musician, who is married to Skyfall director Sir Sam Mendes, confirmed this would be her \u201clast night on stage\u201d in conversation with journalist John Wilson for BBC Radio 4\u2019s This Cultural Life in August.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Comedian Bill Bailey said he is \u201cso proud to be British\u201d following an appearance at the Last Night Of The Proms. The 60-year-old performed Leroy Anderson\u2019s The Typewriter at the event on Saturday, where he played the historic piece of office equipment as though it were a musical instrument. He told the PA news agency: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[371456,323952,371458,371460,371457,371461,349541,371459,371462],"class_list":["post-2021065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bill-bailey","tag-brian-may","tag-last-night-of-the-proms","tag-louise-alder","tag-proud-to-be-british","tag-roger-taylor","tag-royal-albert-hall","tag-sir-brian","tag-the-typewriter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bill-Bailey-\u2018proud-to-be-British-after-Last-Night-Of.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}