''I''m always wary of llamas. They''re mischievous and smart. I get a sense, when I approach them, that they are conferring . . . as if to say, ''That''s that bloke off the telly.''
Bill Bailey has always had dogs in his life, including a Lakeland Terrier called Rocky who would travel with him in the van to his first shows and occasionally join him on stage. Fast forward a few decades and Bill shares his home with a variety of birds, dogs, frogs, chameleons, and an armadillo called Tommy. ''We even had a giant chicken at the house for a while, a huge Malay cockerel, Kid Creole. After a few stand-offs he took against me. He had to go in the end, I was being stalked in my own back garden.''
That chicken apart, animals have always been at the heart of an extraordinary life as one of the nation''s favourite comedians, actors, musicians and (thanks to Strictly) dancers: from terriers to the orangutans of Sumatra and the parrots that share his breakfast
