Billy Connolly – Big Banana Feet review: Fabulous fly-on-the-wall tour diary of a comic in his prime

Selected cinemas; Cert 12A

Billy Connolly being filmed during his 1975 tour

Chris Wasser

Those famous banana boots were still in good nick when ­Billy Connolly arrived in Ireland in October 1975. Superstardom was on the horizon, but first he had a tour to finish and the Irish gigs (one in Dublin, another in Belfast) were his last of the year. Director ­Murray Grigor filmed these final stops and, in doing so, documented a legend in the making.

Long considered buried and newly restored by the British Film Institute, this is a bit of a concert feature, a bit of a fly-on-the-wall tour diary. It also provides a beguiling snapshot of a very different Ireland.