Comic releases a new set of high-end prints

Billy Connolly has released a new set of limited edition art prints.

Here the comedian talks about the new pieces from his Born On a Rainy Day collection.

They are available from Castle’s 37 galleries nationwide and at www.castlefineart.com, priced £1,250 each.

Pontius Tries Pilates

‘I always wanted to give him a kind of keep-fit name and the idea suddenly came to me when my wife was going to the Pilates gym. I said it would be funny to call it Pontius Pilates, then I thought people would be offended by that, so I fiddled around and I got Pontius Tries Pilates.

‘He’s just a guy trying at the gym, trying his best. I don't understand the whole gymnasium culture, but he's he does and he's good.

"I'm not that keen. I go to the gym, and I go to the massage parlour and do Tai Chi, but nothing changes my body. I keep hoping that one day I'll wake up and everything will work; I'll be Slim​ and muscular. I think I can forget it!"

One-Armed Juggler

‘He’s an example of the fact that most of the figures in my work are doing things that don't matter. Just doing the things they do, thinking they'll do you good - I've spent my life doing that. You see guys in their sixties out running in the evening and you think: "Get a chair. Get a chair and a bottle of beer and switch on the telly; who are you kidding?". But all my guys are doing that, they're trying to be part of it wherever 'it' is."

Nightmare

‘I have lots of nightmares. I never really remember them. But I'm famous for shouting in the night and singing and laughing; my daughter has seen me; I've never remembered it. And I was directing a play in my sleep. I was talking to the actors and then I would become the actors, singing songs."

Drunk Donkey

'I used to have two when I lived in Scotland. I just let them wander about the place eating the grass. They're lovely, they're friendly, they're like dogs. They cling to you, they've got a real tie to human beings. Donkeys are funny animals but it's an endearing kind of funny. Our donkeys used to escape over the wall of the garden, run down to the village and the villagers would bring them back.

‘Donkeys always look drunk and behave drunk. This one’s a friendly looking guy and I think he's been drunk a few times because he's got a beer belly on him. And he's got the drunk legs!’

Connolly began his career as an artist in 2012 while  on tour in Canada. ‘I’d never drawn in my life until this point, but I just started drawing weird islands and carried on drawing,’ he says. ‘I asked my wife   to tell me if they were getting better and she said "definitely".

‘My manager sent them to the gallery, and now I make pictures and they’re lovely to me. And the fact that other people like them and want to live with them in their homes blows me sideways. To have somebody who wants a part of your mind in their life - I thought my wife had been the only one to fall for that, but it turns out that she's not alone.

Published: 13 Aug 2023