*** Welcome to piglix ***

Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia

Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia
Billy connolly world tour of australia.jpg
DVD box-set cover
Created by Billy Connolly
Nobby Clark
Steve Brown
Starring Billy Connolly
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of episodes 8
Production
Running time 320 minutes
(40 min/episode)
Release
Original network BBC One
Original release 1996

Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia is the second in a line of ‘world tours’ that follow comedian Billy Connolly on his various travels across the globe.

Filmed over four months in 1995, Connolly takes the viewer on a scenic and informative tour of Australia, a country he first visited in the 1970s, intercut with scenes from his stand-up comedy act at various venues around the country. The tour takes in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Alice Springs and Fraser Island. On the way, Connolly also experiences and demonstrates several Australian customs, traditions, and attractions, including swimming with the dolphins in Perth, eating a pie floater in Adelaide, and visiting several museums and galleries, most of which feature some form of Aboriginal art.

The DVD box-set of the series, released in 2004, contains two discs, each featuring four episodes of the tour. The opening titles feature an Aboriginal man playing a didgeridoo in the foreground, while in the background Connolly drives his Harley-Davidson trike (on which he travels throughout the series, with a New South Wales registration label attached to its rear, which to some may look like a learner's plate) towards and past the camera. The first disc focuses mainly on the southeastern coast of Australia, with Connolly visiting such places as Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle, while the second disc focuses on Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and rural Australia.

Episode 1: Connolly introduces himself and his tour with a preview of where he and his team will be heading and what they will be seeing. He kicks off his tour in October in Sydney by visiting the Harbour Bridge and giving a history of its construction and opening. While on the bridge he points out the Opera House where he performed during his stay in the city. He then takes a tour of the harbour on The Bounty, the ship used in the 1984 film of the same name featuring Mel Gibson. The boat sails past Goat Island, at which point Connolly tells the story of Charlie Anderson, a prisoner who was banished to the island. The boat eventually drops Connolly off at Doyles Restaurant in Watsons Bay, where he chats with its owner, Peter Doyle. Next, he visits the Financial District of Sydney, where he goes underground (via a "personhole cover") to visit the water-tunnels where the convicts were sent to work. The episode concludes with Connolly taking a seaplane trip to visit famous Australian artist, Ken Done.


...
Wikipedia

...