Editing Bill Bailey (section)

===Early stand-up===
Bailey began touring the country with comedians such as [[Mark Lamarr]]. In 1984, he formed a double act, the Rubber Bishops, with [[Toby Longworth]] (a fellow former pupil at King Edward's, Bath). It was there that Bailey began developing his own style, mixing in musical [[parody|parodies]] with [[deconstruction]]s of or variations on traditional jokes ("How many [[Amoeba (genus)|amoebas]] does it take [[Lightbulb joke|to change a lightbulb]]? One, no two! No four! No eight...").  Longworth left to join the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]] (RSC) in 1989 and was replaced by Martin Stubbs.

Stubbs later quit to pursue a more serious career, and in 1994 Bailey performed ''Rock'' at the [[Edinburgh Festival Fringe]] with [[Sean Lock]], a show about an ageing rockstar and his [[Road crew|roadie]], script-edited by comedy writer Jim Miller. It was later serialised for the [[Mark Radcliffe (radio broadcaster)|Mark Radcliffe]] show on [[BBC Radio 1]]. The show's attendances were not impressive and on one occasion the only person in the audience was comedian [[Dominic Holland]]. Bailey almost gave up comedy to take up a [[Telemarketing|telesales]] job.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/bill-bailey-for-whom-the-bill-toils-6157771.html| archive-url=https://archive.today/20130420113731/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/bill-bailey-for-whom-the-bill-toils-6157771.html| url-status=dead| archive-date=20 April 2013|location=London|work=The Independent|title=Bill Bailey: For whom the Bill toils|date=18 November 2004}}</ref>

He went solo the next year with the one-man show ''Bill Bailey's Cosmic Jam''. The show led to a recording at the [[Bloomsbury Theatre]] in London, which was broadcast in 1997 on [[Channel 4]] as a one-hour special called ''Bill Bailey Live''. It was not until 2005 that this was released on DVD uncut and under its original title. It marked the first time that Bailey had been able to tie together his music and [[Postmodernism|post-modern]] [[joke|gags]] with the whimsical rambling style he is now known for.

After supporting [[Donna McPhail]] in 1995 and winning a ''[[Time Out (company)|Time Out]]'' award, he returned to [[Edinburgh]] in 1996 with a show that was nominated for the [[Edinburgh Comedy Awards|Perrier Comedy Award]]. Amongst the other nominees was future ''[[Black Books]]'' co-star [[Dylan Moran]], who narrowly beat him in the closest vote in the award's history.

Bailey won the Best Live Stand-Up award at the [[British Comedy Awards]] in 1999.