Light relief from one of our most brilliantly original comedians
SMark Brown o, it’s come to this. Thanks to Covid-19, attending a comedy show now involves a logistical operation akin to that of the Berlin Airlift.
In order to see Bill Bailey perform at the Virgin Money Unity Arena in Newcastle’s Gosforth Park (billed as “The UK’S first dedicated socially distanced music venue”), you must arrive by car or taxi (strictly no pedestrians), and do so within a given 20-minute arrival slot. Once at what is also the home of Newcastle Racecourse, you must don a face covering while walking around, as well as observing the show entirely from within the confines of the sort of numbered pen in which you might expect to find livestock on auction day.
By the time you unfold your (no doubt carefully disinfected) plastic seat and contemplate the possibility that this might be the dystopian future of entertainment, you’re certainly in need of light relief. Thankfully, you’re in the right place, as Bailey remains one of the funniest, most brilliantly original comedians in the UK.
We know him for his fabulously creative combination of music and offbeat observational humour (who can forget his imagining of Kraftwerk playing the Hokey Cokey?), but Bailey isn’t averse to a bit of political comedy, and has both Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab in his sights. He doesn’t despair of British politics entirely, however. “At least,” he says, “we’re not America.”
The socially distanced field in which Bailey is performing (to call it an “arena” is stretching the term somewhat) has been designated as a music venue, and the stage for his show looks very much like a large rock band’s. A talented and versatile musician, he has with him an array of instruments, ranging from an electric guitar to the delightful percussion instrument known as a handpan. This is the Bath-born comedian’s first show in six months, and the material is classic Bailey. The musical and poetic humour (a doctor’s bad news songs, an anti-racist limerick) are as inventive and eclectic as ever. His more discursive jokes (including a tale about an incident involving a Dubai Airport customs officer, by way of numerous, hilarious, rambling asides) are executed with the seemingly spontaneous delivery of a West Country Billy Connolly.
There are highbrow gags, such as the origins of a vulgar hand gesture in Aristophanes’s play The Clouds, and the Twitter account of Samuel Peeps. There are also panto-style gags, such as Bailey leading the audience in a speeded-up rendition of California Dreamin’ by The Mamas and the Papas.
Indeed, in a similar vein to Eddie Izzard (who famously performed in France entirely in French), Bailey offers an impressive, amusingly truncated rendering of his set in German. This is, perhaps, topped only by his side-splitting skit about his home life, related entirely via the medium of heavy metal.
The pandemic may have turned the world upside down, but Bill Bailey is as reassuringly clever, creative and joyfully silly as ever.