A theatre isn't an arena, and a swansong is far from a premiere. Bill Bailey's show Tinselworm is much improved since I saw it at Manchester Arena 15 months ago. In the largest venue in Europe, his particular brand of directionless noodling got lost. But in a West End playhouse, with a show that has since toured the world, Bailey's as happy (to misquote the man himself) as a mouse that's just realised he's got more cheese than he thought.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a standup who can't see a comedy slip-road without driving up it, the show is much changed. Obama and the Strictly Come Dancing voting scandal now open the set. There's a skit about the Large Hadron Collider, which sees Switzerland sucked piece by piece into a black hole: "Toblerone. Knives. Clocks. Residual antisemitism." And an old joke that twins the Friends theme with scenes of tragic misfortune is now applied to bankers at Lehman Brothers.
There's the usual Bailey shtick, too, in which philosophic thought is reimagined through a beer glass. My favourite is his claim to live vicariously through celebrities, which means he can't make any decision before asking himself, "What would Bill Bailey do?" But there are also trenchant opinions expressed about the real world: a very funny preview of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, say, with "every aspect of Britishness given a horrendous Eurovision makeover"; or a spirited defence of conspiracy theories.
The balance - between music and talk, between absurd non-sequiturs and well-developed routines - is right tonight. And whereas Bailey sometimes prioritises technology over jokes, here he scales back the trickery and foregrounds the standup. Perhaps small(ish) venues equal beautiful comedy. At any rate, this is one piece of Tinsel that deserves to stay up well after Christmas.
