HE may be one of Britain’s best-known comics, but as a youngster, Bill Bailey had other ideas about what his future might hold.

The comedian, musician and actor, says: “I always thought I might be in a band and play music and that would be my career.”

But as a teenager, growing up in the West Country, Bailey and a mate discovered comedy, and after some DIY efforts to get themselves on stage, never looked back – though music has always remained, an intrinsic part of his humour.

Bailey, who brings his latest show, Qualmpeddler, to the Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff, next month, says the key to his early comedy was his relationship with an early comic partner, and the discovery of a shared sense of humour.

He says: “I grew up in Bath and there was a club in the town.

“Me and a friend from school said to the owner, ‘we want to do a night’. We were mates and we used to make up silly stories and ideas at home, and we just thought, ‘why don’t we try to do a comedy night?’ “We just did it ourselves. That was the mentality there, a DIY comedy scene.”

He explains: “Listening to comedy programmes and seeing it on TV, I think humour can be a very personal thing. It’s very subjective.

“When you’re in your teens, you’re finding whether people have a similar sense of humour, and it’s a lovely thing, like a little club you’re in.

“We’d go round and make up silly songs. Then we thought ‘why don’t we do this on stage and see what happens?’ So that’s what we did.

“It was really just great fun, fantastic fun. We just so enjoyed what we were doing.

“There was something then that’s always stayed with me. It’s like a buzz. You get the buzz and that’s it. It’s your calling.

“You find you want to do more of it. There’s something quite exciting about getting a connection with an audience. Most of the time we didn’t know what we were doing, but when something worked, it was like a lightbulb. You’d go ‘oh right, that was fantastic.’ “It’s like a drug.”

That connection between comedian and audience is what Bailey sees as the reason people go to watch comedy at all.

He says: “Comedy is a very communal experience, from an audience point of view. Humans are very sociable animals. We like to be in groups and to feel part of something. Comedy is a very pleasant way of doing that.

“People want to go and stand in an arena and watch comedy. It’s almost like a religion.”

After starting in an off-the-wall musical comedy duo call the Rubber Bishops, Bailey moved to solo stand-up, then to TV shows including the cult sitcom, Black Books, where he played the increasingly deranged Manny Bianco, and Spaced, where he was comic-store owner, Bilbo Bagshot.

He also spent six years as a team captain on the BBC’s Never Mind the Buzzcocks, pop quiz show.

However, he sees the project which took him away from Buzzcocks, Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra, as one of the proudest moments of his career.

The show, performed at the Royal Albert Hall, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, saw him unpick and explore the mysteries of classical music and the orchestra, using his particular brand of humour.

He explains: “I think it was because it was the culmination of a long-held ambition to perform with an orchestra, and in a way, to de-mystify the orchestra. “It involved an enormous amount of time and work, a great labour of love. It was the most exhilarating feeling, having put it all together, “Now, it’s something which will have a lasting impact. I get letters from people around the world, saying that they use the DVD as a teaching aid.”

Bailey has also worked as an actor in TV shows, including Skins, and films including Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang and Burke and Hare.

He has presented TV wildlife shows and headlined a stage at Sonisphere festival, alongside the likes of Biffy Clyro, Slayer and Metallica.

However, in the latter case, Bailey admits he feared things could have gone horribly wrong.

He explains: “There were 55,000 metal fans out there. “I had this nightmare in which I was hurled into the mosh pit and pulled apart like a squirrel among a pack of pitbulls.”

Of course it didn’t happen. In fact, it was such a hit the experience spawned an album, Bill Bailey in Metal, released in 2011.

Bill Bailey’s Qualmpeddler
Ipswich Regent
St Helens Street, Ipswich
October 7 and 8 at 8pm. Tickets are £25
01473 433100