Mark Lamarr once described Bill Bailey as "Darwin's surprise", and that's one of the kinder things that have been said about him. Perhaps, to borrow the title of this show, he really is "half troll".
But it hasn't done him any harm. Two decades after Bailey launched himself into comedy, there's no getting away from his scrubby beard and ageing rocker's 'do: on TV, on radio (yes, you can hear the facial hair) and now in London's West End.
But he's not about to wear out the welcome. After a low-key, rambling intro that Bailey likens to starting a new roll of toilet paper comes two hours of rare comedic intelligence.
Pre-interval, his main theme is cultural difference, from rubbish Britain ("We are hard-wired for melancholy") to weird America ("My mum had never tasted a bagel - or seen a 6ft 4in transvestite"), via Bali, New Zealand and Australia. He has some great stories about the questions asked at immigration: wildlife-related in Australia ("How do you feel about grebes?"), politically obsessed in the US ("Were you a member of the Nazi government of Germany?"). Some may even be true.
Things get weirder in the second half as "1987's International Face of Hemp" meanders through astrophysics, religion, pogonophobia (fear of beards), vegetarianism and, again, the uselessness of the British. There's a bit of coasting on the subject of drugs (he doesn't need the cheap laughs) but that's more than made up for by the songs satirising world events or combining incompatible musical forms, as Bailey flits between keyboards, guitar and theremin. Why, you wonder, has no one else set the "wisdom" of George W Bush to drum'n'bass? The stand-out moment, though, is a deadpan German-language Hokey-Cokey, as it might have been performed by Kraftwerk. The more serious Bailey is, the more screamingly funny he becomes. Early in the show, he describes himself as a wizard. He's referring to his looks, but tonight he does magic.
· Until December 18. Box office: 020-7494 5070.
