Billy Birmingham

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Billy Birmingham (Born 1953) is an Australian humourist and sometime sports journalist, most noted for his parodies of Australian cricket commentary in recordings under The Twelfth Man name.^[1] He was the writer of the comedy hit Australiana 1983 which was made famous by performer Austen Tayshus.^[2] Birmingham is also a regular on the panel discussion show The Back Page, alongside Mike Gibson and Peter FitzSimons.^[3] Ironically, Mike Gibson was sent up by Birmingham during the late 1980s on his Twelfth Man album Wired World of Sports.

Birmingham is famous for being able to find humour amid the hyperbole of world sport. Following Michael Clarke's debut innings of 151 against India, there was considerable praise for him - including comments that the young man was the new Donald Bradman and that he should captain Australia. Birmingham famously announced on The Back Page that he was going to nominate Clarke for Australian of the Year, "He's just that good".

During the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Birmingham also recorded a series of mock-commentaries on Olympic events as the "Wired World of Sports", featuring such characters as the American track-and-field representative "Chuck D'Wobblee" ("chucked a wobbly" - meaning to throw a tantrum) and the Ukrainian pole-vaulter "Olga Bedjanodgonnagedova" ("bet you're not gonna get over"), while also releasing the single, "Bruce 2000", featuring an impersonation of Bruce McAvaney during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Other people he has mimiced include:

Bill Lawry
Tony Greig
Mark Taylor
Ian Chappell
Alan Jones (radio broadcaster)
Ray Warren
Darrell Eastlake
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard
Plus many other iconic people.

A skilled impersonator, Birmingham is also used on the show as a means of interviewing a sporting celebrity who is otherwise unavailable. His impression of Australian Rugby Union coach Eddie Jones following the decision to award a Super 14 franchise to Perth is a prime example of this, even to the point that another panelist held Birmingham's left eyebrow in place in order to have him look like the man he was pretending to be. At one point, Birmingham even began an impression of Gibson, which he ceased on deciding (tongue-in-cheek) that it might endanger his career. He also is well known for spontaneously impersonating Richie Benaud during a discussion of Twenty20 cricket, saying "Why not twenty-two overs for the two sides?" (taking advantage of Benaud's characteristic pronunciation of the letters T and S). In the lead-up to the Melbourne Cup, Birmingham will frequently adopt the distinctive voice of a jockey. Interestingly, his attempt at impersonating boxer Kostya Tszyu was quite wide of the mark.

Birmingham is also known for his ability to cover up any ignorance he might have of players' names by creating new ones in keeping with the country in question. A discussion about the New Zealand rugby league team collapsed into laughter when Birmingham praised, among others, the performance of "the centre, Waisiwerina Silitupe" ("Why's he wearing a silly toupee").

Birmingham has also used his impersonation skills on advertisements for KFC, as he did during the summer of 2002/03.