Bill Bailey: From pining over an Edinburgh bar manageress to the king of Saturday night

There was his startled expression, a look you felt sure would be replicated by a pet back at home, the only question being: which one? At its busiest Bill Bailey’s menagerie has consisted of four parrots, two monkeys, a python, a chameleon, assorted fish, two starlings, a few cats and five rescue dogs, three of which he had shipped over from Indonesia.

He's the greatest dancer and he's got the Strictly glitterball to prove it - Bill Bailey with Oti Mabuse

There was his hairstyle, bald on top, long and grey at the back, like that of a college lecturer who for old time’s sake still finishes the odd sentence with “man”. Or the rock music obsessive in the spirit of the New Musical Express cartoon The Lone Groover who’s never got over the original Deep Purple splitting up in 1973 and still hopes for a reunion one day.

And there was his age. No man of 55 wins Strictly Come Dancing, not when rivals can still be in their teens, lithe of limb and boasting stage-school backgrounds. And what, Bailey’s a comedian? That settles it: he’ll be good for a laugh but that’s all, only making it through to week five, max.

Well, if any of the show’s contestants had thought such first impressions would count against Bailey when the line-up was revealed, or any of the audience watching at home, then they didn’t know he possessed the tenacity of a terrier and maybe a python. And perhaps the person most qualified to confirm these qualities is his wife Kristin.

In 1987 she was running a bar in Edinburgh when he was 22 and struggling to get his act together. They met at a gig but while he was sometimes playing to audiences of one and reading reviews criticising him for a complete absence of jokes - and even quitting comedy for telesales, although he would walk out of that job over the rule he thought bizarre of having to wear a tie - Bailey was much taken with the former costume designer. He wrote Kristin a letter informing her of this, then another and all told, one a week for an entire year. Finally she weakened.

Viewers fell for his charms far quicker and Bailey - who’d previously declared that his most unusual Christmas was spent on a tropical beach eating cheese and tomato sandwiches with his family and re-enacting The Great Escape, the Queen’s Speech and the rest of festive telly with a TV constructed from driftwood - had one to top it the morning after his triumph.

Surely he can’t have imagined that at the end of a year like no other, on a Strictly like no other, he’d be declared a champ like no other - and then, having fed the paparazzi camped outside his home mince pies, danced down the street for them.

How did this happen? How did he do it? Bailey was funny for sure though he didn’t play the show for laughs. There were fewer wisecracks than you’d expect from a comic and no slapstick. Just the mere spectacle of him in a clinch with stunning Amazonian pro-dance partner Oti Mabuse like he was the luckiest dad-dancer in the world (confirmed) was funny. But, similar to the prog-rock bands he loves, Bill threw everything at the performance with fellow finalist Jamie Laing admitted that while he would invariably quit practice at 6pm, Bailey would still be at it three hours later.

Maybe, in this year of ordinary heroes, we wanted Bailey to come from nowhere and be the unlikeliest winner. Maybe in this year of Captain Tom we wanted Bailey to be the oldest winner. And maybe with the looming threat of another lockdown - this time in dead of winter, when we might be less inclined to get up off the sofa, even though we know we should - we need this spritely fellow to show us how you can fall to your knees, fire flames from your guitar, then jump right back up again.

Bill has saved Strictly, a show which had lost some of its sparkle, and in turn it’s been one of those TV events like Bake Off upon which the Government has piggy-backed - knowing the nation would be close to the TV - for safe delivery of their grim pandemic instructions. Just before the 1964 General Election, Harold Wilson was desperate for the BBC to move an edition of Steptoe & Son, fearing it would keep working-class voters away from the polling-stations. Two months ago Boris Johnson dithered over a scheduled Downing Street broadcast until the Beeb phoned No 10 to say there was no way Strictly - and Bill - would be delayed so he’d better get his backside in gear. The PM promptly did.

You wonder what Bailey will make of Johnson - should the latter still be around - when he returns to stand-up. Though a Labour man, he was just as critical of Tony Blair as he was David Cameron, but generally he makes his points gently, his humour shot through with fantasy and music (rev up YouTube for him as Kraftwerk covering the Wurzels and stay for Hokey Cokey).

You wonder too how this significant upgrade in celebrity status will sit with him for he’s sometimes railed against low culture and the dumbed-downness of modern life. “It’s the inanity of it all, the anti-intellectualism, that I can’t stand,” he once said. And back when The X Factor was the biggest light entertainment show on the box and Cheryl Cole was one of the judges, he tweeted “How did this violent thug become the nation’s sweetheart?”, a reference to the former Girls Aloud singer having been convicted for assaulting a toilet attendant.

Now, though, The X Factor is fading fast and Bill Bailey is the new king of Saturday night. I think he’ll cope alright.

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