Unbowed by prostate cancer and Parkinson’s disease, Billy Connolly is to bring his High Horse tour to London for an 11-night run at Hammersmith Apollo in January 2016.
The 72-year-old Scottish comedian, named the greatest standup ever in polls on Channel 4 in 2007 and 2010 and Channel 5 in 2013, has already taken the tour round Scotland and Canada. Tickets are available to pre-order from today.
On seeing the show in Scotland in 2014, the Guardian’s Brian Logan described it in a four-star review as: “Beautifully funny … several routines here – the one about his mistaken arrest for drug-dealing in Aberdeen city centre; the one about having a cigarette accident while driving – are unexceptional in principle but made to soar by the musicality of his accent, those sonorous preacher rhythms, and his schoolboy sense of fun.”
In the show he doesn’t shy from his health troubles – Dominic Cavendish of the Telegraph reported on “an enjoyably wince-making section about his empty ejaculations and an excruciating bladder procedure”. He underwent surgery for prostate cancer in 2013, and announced he was receiving treatment for Parkinson’s disease in the same year.
Known first for his standup comedy, beginning in the mid-70s, Connolly has since appeared in numerous films from handsome dramas like Mrs Brown and Quartet to crime thriller The Boondock Saints and children’s hits Brave and Muppet Treasure Island. He has also appeared in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and filmed numerous travelogues for TV. An exhibition of his artwork is currently on display in Glasgow.
