Catriona Richards

Jakarta Globe, November 12, 2012

It’s no accident that UK comedian Bill Bailey was made the headlining act of the inaugural Jakarta International Fringe Festival, better known as JakFringe.

Aside from having an impressive stage career as an actor, musician and comedian for almost 25 years, Bailey also has a strong connection to Indonesia, a place he has visited many times.

Bailey is a patron of the Sumatran Orangutan Society, keeps a menagerie of rescued Indonesian birds and animals as pets at home in England, married his wife here in 1998 and, on a recent trip, even delivered an address in formal Indonesian to the Sultan of Ternate in Maluku, an experience he describes as being both “surreal” and “nerve-racking.”

Despite his long-term relationship with the country, this is the first time Bailey has been invited to perform in Indonesia. He performed his latest show “Qualmpeddler,” which has yet to reach audiences in the United Kingdom, as the festival’s headlining act on Saturday.

The Thinker 

Bailey is known for his erratic stand-up persona, an energetic entertainer who jumps from observations of the mundane to expeditions into scientific theory before forging on into the territory of experimental music.

In person, this energy is distilled into a contemplative presence that is nevertheless brimming with ideas.

Ahead of his debut Indonesian performance this week, Bailey’s mind was already hard at work delving into topics of language, biology and history, even after a late night out at Fez bar in Kemang.

“It all started out very civilized, you know, a glass of wine and canapes,” he said of the opening celebration for JakFringe. “And then by the end of the evening we were all on stage singing songs and playing guitar. So it got quite raucous.”

Bailey’s body of work spans different media and genres, from stage to screen and drama to documentary filmmaking.

His latest stand-up show tackles topics as diverse as celebrity culture, global finance, classical music and the state of the planet. The cryptic title, he says, was inspired by one of his grandmother’s well-worn phrases.

“My grandmother used to use the word ‘qualms’ a lot,” he said. “She’d have qualms about some scones coming out of the oven, and then she’d have qualms about nuclear war. So it was quite a broad spectrum.”

As for “peddling” his own qualms in Indonesia and around the world, Bailey says that is basically his job description.

“I realized that the word ‘qualmpeddler’ is almost a euphemism for what stand-up is, really. Stand-up comics just kind of throw back what people are thinking in a more succinct, funny way,” he said.

But that doesn’t mean Bailey dumbs things down for his audience. According to his logic, if a topic is covered in a newspaper, then it is of general interest to the public, and audiences are going to want to hear about it. That puts the Higgs boson of particle physics on the same plane as political bickering and the life of Kylie Minogue.

“I try never to underestimate an audience,” he said. “I think audiences are smart, that’s my default setting.”

The Traveler 

Bailey is known around the world as “the thinking person’s comedian,” but here in Indonesia he has a new title, “the father of the orangutans.” The title was given to him by the so-called godfather of Indonesian stand-up, Ramon Papana, who is paired with Bailey in the festival as his Indonesian counterpart.

The new title is not so far from the truth. Aside from his patronage of the Sumatran Orangutan Society, Bailey is also involved with animal rights groups such as International Animal Rescue and the Bali Dog Adoption and Rehabilitation Center (BARC), and has even hosted a TV miniseries titled “Baboons with Bill Bailey.”

On tour in Australia before coming here, Bailey raised $30,000 for BARC through his shows. At home in London, he keeps a number of animals from Indonesia as pets.

“Our house is like an Indonesian zoo,” he says, listing among his animal friends a Moluccan cockatoo, a Triton cockatoo from Papua and three Balinese dogs.

It was the natural beauty of Indonesia that originally drew Bailey to Indonesia. On holiday in Bali with his then-partner, Bailey found the island to be overcrowded with tourists, and looked around for a more adventurous destination.

“We just went on an adventure, and the adventure took us to Ambon,” Bailey said.

From Ambon the pair took a ferry to Banda Neira, once a central hub of the global spice trade. Overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the place, they decided to marry there straight away.

“It became a bit of an event on the island,” Bailey said. “All the islanders turned up to see us.”

After falling in love with the country, Bailey and his wife soon fell in love with its people, too. Returning to Indonesia many times since their wedding, they have formed long-lasting family ties, including with the granddaughter of a friend from Banda Neira who now boards at their home in London.

“We have a great affinity with the place, a great affection for it,” Bailey said. “We’ve made some lovely friends here in Indonesia.”

The Wallacist 

Bailey’s most recent visit to Indonesia before joining JakFringe was a visit the Sultan of Ternate — an unlikely encounter that came about during the making of a BBC documentary about the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. The documentary is due for release next year, marking 100 years since the great naturalist’s death.

In his lifetime, Wallace traveled widely in the Malay archipelago where he noticed a sharp distinction between the types of wildlife closer to Asia on one side and Australia on the other. This natural barrier is now known as the Wallace Line.

“Wallace should really be recognized as the originator of the theory of evolution and natural selection,” Bailey said. “When you talk about evolution, it should be Wallacism, not Darwinism.”

Bailey walked the Wallace Line while working on the documentary, which is how he met the sultan, who turned out to be very knowledgeable about Wallace and his theory.

“I felt about 10 years old, it was like I had been called in front of the headmaster,” Bailey said. “He just sort of sat there, very imperiously, and said: ‘So, you’ve come here to talk about Wallace?’ ”

Bailey then presented a speech in formal Indonesian — “‘Oh you know, yang mulia [your highness] , thank you very much for inviting me here with the BBC” — a language he says he is fascinated by.

“I love the rhythms of it when you hear it spoken,” he said. “The doubled words for things like animals. So you have lumba-lumba , which is dolphin, or laba-laba for spider, kupu-kupu is butterfly … that’s what gives it a kind of poetry, in a way.”

Whether for its language, people, or natural beauty, Bailey says he is committed to a “long-term relationship with Indonesia,” and is certain to return for the next JakFringe if he is invited.

“I’ve loved this country for 15 years,” Bailey said. “It’s a great honor, thank you for inviting me.”