Comic Bailey delivers laughs with cow bells and car horns
Bill Bailey OVO Arena, Wembley ★★★★✩
BILL BAILEY is not just the country’s most unlikely Strictly Come Dancing champion, he is about to be a court jester. The acclaimed comedian was recently named as one of the acts appearing at the People’s Pageant, the finalé of the Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations on June 5. But before that he has to complete his arena tour.
The Wembley stop-off found Bailey on fine form, demonstrating exactly why he has become so ubiquitous. He is a populist showman who never dumbs down. There are songs in French, in German, classical covers, albeit played on car horns. His verbal flights of fancy exude wit, brains and boundless imagination.
There was also a mandatory dash of politics. He started by skewering the Government, calling them “nitwits, halfwits and nonwits”. Bailey has so much charm it never felt malicious, though it was definitely not affectionate.
His show is called En Route to Normal. This suggests that it is about post-pandemic life, but the title refers more to Bailey asking what normal means. His off-duty life is anything but, if his anecdotes here are a guide.
One moment he is skydiving in New Zealand, the next pulling plastic bags out of his dog’s bottom.
There are many different Baileys and they all get a look-in. The mainstream entertainer essays a Strictly Charleston, the bearded ACDC fan resembling “Gandalf in a spoon” rocks out on guitar. Bailey the conservationist discusses tree snails. Bailey the aspiring Eurovision entrant delivers a melancholy Gallic ballad.
If it sometimes feels disparate that is because he is bursting with ideas. Towards the end any pretence of theme was abandoned in favour of a succession of rapid-fire musical numbers, culminating in a new song including a topical reference to looking online for wheelbarrows and ending up finding porn.
The polymath performer, inset, never quite answers the question of what is normal but it certainly does not describe what he does on stage. The image of Bailey, wispy mad professor hair flying around as he frantically bashes out heavy metal on cow bells, will live long in the memory.