According to news reports Billy Connolly was particularly outspoken at a recent gig in Ireland. During his show in Killarney on Thursday night the Big Yin apparently swore at photographer Valerie O'Sullivan because she was in his eyeline. O'Sullivan was the official photographer at the INEC venue and according to reports, after saying "get the fuck out of here" Connolly then called her, pardon my language, a "fucking cunt".
Connolly was later interviewed on the radio and when the incident was mentioned he said he had no regrets, adding "I'm very proud of it". Here we go again. I guess this will kick off another round of kneejerk Connolly-bashing. It is not quite an annual sport but it certainly seems to come around alarmingly regularly. He does have a bit of previous with the press, having been known to have a go at photographers at airports. And, most famously, there was the "Ken Bigley" incident in 2004, when he was doing a gig at the Hammersmith Apollo and said "Don't you just wish they would just get on with it?"about the hostage being held in Iraq. I was at that gig and, typically, the tabloids made a lot more fuss about it than the audience at the time. Connolly is a comedy legend who makes good copy, so it is inevitable that the press will pick up on this latest incident and trawl through their cuttings and go through google and list all the other times he has been in trouble (who am I to talk, I've just done a bit of trawling myself). They might say Connolly is getting tiresome but this old "foul-mouthed tirade" angle is even more tiresome.
The thing about Connolly is that one should not be surprised by now when he says something controversial. After all, he has been doing it for most of his career – take his breakthrough gag on Parkinson in the mid-Seventies about the man murdering his wife, burying her and leaving her bum sticking out of the ground to use as a bike rack. How would that go down today if it was told for the first time on Live at the Apollo? Would it even make the edit?
Connolly is now 70 – he was recently in the news after admitting that he had been suffering from memory difficulties – so he also has the excuse that he is well into grumpy old man territory. Performing stand-up onstage in front of a big crowd is tough for anyone and I can well imagine a performer getting irritated by something catching hs eye in the audience. I'm more surprised that Connolly hasn't grabbed glowing mobile phones out of people's hands in the past.
If reports are correct his language was pretty brutal and maybe on the one hand there is an argument that he could have had the grace to apologise and just say that he was trying to do his show and the photographer was distracting him. I'm not for a moment saying that Connolly is above criticism. I just get fed up when the press goes to town on his slightest misdemeanour.
In a world where politicians and celebrities are constantly doing and saying the wrong thing and then apologising and thinking that makes everything somehow alright his unapologetic stance is perversely refreshing. He is a taboo-busting comedian, after all, not the Pope or Michael Palin. Fruity language comes with the territory. And I would have thought a professional photographer would be able to handle a potty-mouthed put-down. I'm not saying he shouldn't apologise, of course, and I'm not saying he is right. But if he chooses not to say sorry let's not start the latest Connolly witch hunt just yet.
