If Bill Bailey is to pass on any advice, it's that life isn't to be taken too seriously - even while in the grips of a global pandemic.
The acclaimed British comedian and musician is touring 12 centres throughout New Zealand, and will be in Tauranga next week with his new show, En Route to Normal, which sees him pondering questions like: How did we get here? How do we find our way through this? And exactly who are we again?
While holed up in lockdown London, he spent a lot of time thinking about his life, about the "intense experience" of lockdown, and how it compared to past global crises.
"I think that we're at a unique place, where the whole world has gone through the same experience," he says.
"These things rarely happen, and as awful as it is, and tragic and devastating, we're in it together.
"It's a kind of communal experience."
He says there are positives in that, including a collective way out.
"We're heading there, and maybe we don't want things to go back the way they were. Maybe we've figured out a better way of doing things."
It's this understanding of togetherness that makes Bailey so approachable, despite being a star.
After two weeks spent in managed isolation, he's been approached a lot.
"People do come up to me quite a bit, and I think maybe it's quite a uniquely Kiwi thing.
"They're quite respectful and they just come over and go: 'Oh, hello, Bill. Yeah, I see you're in the country, good. Welcome to New Zealand; have a good time', and then that's it. It's great. It's very sweet and people are just very polite, but they're quite sort of direct and low-key about it, which I really like."
He doesn't mind the odd selfie with Kiwi fans; and he's a fan of our music, having recently been introduced to metal band Alien Weaponry, who hail from Northland's Waipu and deliver many of their songs in te reo Māori.
"They're only young guys and they're just absolutely brilliant," he enthuses.
If he had to sum up New Zealand in three words, he jokes it'd be: "Yeah, nah, yeah" before, giving the more descriptive: "Green, exotic and friendly."
A vast contrast to how he sums up the UK right now: "It's pretty grim".
He's a frequent visitor to New Zealand having performed here six times before, most recently in 2018.
Kiwi fans can expect all the same elements in his latest tour that have made up previous ones, and that's "stories, jokes, anecdotes and lots of music".
Over the years, he's found British and Kiwi humour to be very similar, he says.
"I think we have quite a lot of commonality in taste. A bit of healthy scepticism about authority and a good eye for the absurdity of life."
He's also used to our accents now.
"It was quite odd when I first came. I didn't quite catch what people were saying because of the inversion. When you get used to it, it's quite familiar. Any word with an 'i' in it though, can take me a couple of times to get it."
While in New Zealand this time, he's also filming and hosting a new comedy panel show for TVNZ called Patriot Brains, which will feature teams of competing Kiwi and Australian comics and premier on TV2 after Easter.
Asked what fans might be surprised to know about him, he says probably that he's a petrol head.
"I've got an old vintage car that I like to drive around in. An old Citroen DS, which I bought in France years ago, and a Kiwi guy who relocated to London restored it. I [also] bought my dad an old Ford Prefect from 1948, so I like an old car."
Some other things you might not know are that he's good at most things but "not DIY".
He was an academic at school, as well as sporty, and musical (he has the ambition to do a musical theatre show one day). He later added activist; ballroom dancer (he won Strictly Come Dancing with partner Oti Mabuse); author and illustrator to his repertoire.
The 56-year-old released Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To Happiness last year, a book that details how he finds happiness in today's always-connected, sometimes distant world.
In a collection of 36 essays, the entertainer explains how certain things can help one achieve "real genuine happiness".
Covid-19 forced us to assess our priorities, and one of those is what constitutes real happiness, he says.
"Having the time to think about it and write it, I suddenly delved a lot into what I considered that to be.
"Are we chasing something that's elusive? And maybe it's in the simple things ... the daily weft of life.
"Being in a community, knowing your neighbours, and also being in nature.
"Listening to bird songs, going for walks along the river, being in the woods. I found that to be really sustaining.
"We always say things like 'it's good for the soul' but actually, when I was researching the book, there are also lots of physiological reasons why it's good for us."
A description of his book online reads: "Whether it's whooping aloud while cycling through a pine forest, putting pen to paper, or immersing yourself in music, Bill's guide to happiness is an antidote to the frenetic whirl of modern life."
His latest show delivers the same.
Bill Bailey will perform En Route to Normal at Tauranga's Trustpower Baypark on March 25. This will be his second visit to Tauranga, having previously stayed in Mount Maunganui in 2018 when he performed his Earl of Whimsy tour. Tickets from ticketek.co.nz
