A long lost documentary of Billy Connolly at the end of his 1975 tour playing Dublin and (despite warnings not to) Belfast. A print turned up on eBay in 2022 and was restored by the BFI.
Still grainy and dark but highly watchable, this is an historic archival document of the Big Yin in his early prime when his act still revolved as much around his comedy songs on guitar and banjo as it did on his more familiar stand up routines.
It was at the height of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland and you can see there's a little anxiety within Billy's entourage, which consisted of Billy and 2 roadies. Apparently more than twenty weapons were confiscated by security…

Another great restoration from the BFI, Murray Grigor's 1977 fly-on-the-wall documentary following Billy Connolly's 1975 tour of Ireland - Dublin in the Republic and, against advice, the Troubles-strife Belfast in the North - had been languishing in the wilderness for many years. I have memories of it being on VHS (or even Betamax) in the 80s and us renting it from the video shop but, beyond some clips being used in countless documentaries and retrospectives on the Big Yin through the years, this is the first time I've seen this in full since I was a kid, amused by this figure with bananas on his feet and watching my dad roar with laughter at gags that mostly went way over…

Previously considered lost, Big Banana Feet is an intimate all-access documentary into Billy Connolly's 1975 tour of Ireland, capturing the anxieties of The Troubles while balancing it with well-intentioned ribbing of the English, and an absurdist blue humour that offered an escapism for Irish crowds desperate for it. In his stage performances as a comedian and folk musician, Billy Connolly's storytelling, poetic flourishes, and down-to-earth silliness offers his audience a source of solidarity during a tumultuous period which often left many too scared to enter public spaces.

A fusion of concert film and intimate interviews not unlike Pennebaker's great Dylan doc Don't Look Back - and I suspect this may have had some influence on the great Stewart Lee's Comedy…

It's obviously a fascinating watch in so many ways, the behind the scenes of it all as the camera just follows Billy and his crew around, acting like a fly on the wall for our benefit is very interesting to watch, particularly in light of the period and location in which this was all filmed, Ireland and Northern Ireland in the midst of the Troubles, with Connolly constantly quizzed by locals on the nature of his act and comedic takes, and the potential for controversy that can stem from it. Oh lord how little these people could have imagined where comedy and culture was going to go in the next half century.

This is hybrid piece though, there's that backstage…

A documentary, following Billy Connolly as he goes on the Irish leg of his 1975 stand-up tour. I say "leg", but that's being charitable; he played just two nights: one in Dublin, and the next in Belfast. An unremarkable bit of scheduling, except for the fact that he was doing this at the height of 'The Troubles'. Just months earlier, members of the Miami Showband had been murdered by paramilitaries at a fake border checkpoint while returning from a show in the north. As a result, many acts of the time were giving the Emerald Isle a swerve.

To its credit, the film never tries to make too much of this. You get the sense that Connolly himself would be…

It seems that in 1972 a couple of Banjo playing comedians made their debut, Steve Martin in the US, and Billy Connolly in Scotland. Billy had already been a performer in folk bands and that’s where he started cracking the jokes, before moving into stand up. 

The first time I was lucky enough to see Billy Connolly live I was 17 and living in Orkney. The last time I saw him live was 25 years later in San Francisco when I lived near there. I can’t say which was funnier as my jaw and cheeks hurt both times after laughing so hard. Truly a Scottish treasure, Sir Billy Connolly, has had a career that any comedian would be envious of. …

Wellies they are wonderful, oh wellies they are swell
Cause they keep out the water, and they keep in the smell
And when you're sitting in a room, you can always tell
When some bugger takes off his wellies

If it wasnae for your wellies, where would you be?
You'd be in the hospital or infirmary
Cause you would have a dose of the flu or even pluracy
If you didnae have your feet in your wellies!

But when yer oot walking, in the country way about
An yer strolling over fields just like a fairmer's herd
And somebody shouts "Keep aff the grass", and you think "How absurd"
And, squelch, you find why fairmers a' wear wellies

There's fishermen…