Bill Bailey may be a household name, with a year-long tour on the go, including this five-week West End stint. But performance gremlins are no respecter of status, and his opening night of Limboland is itself pitched into limbo when Bailey’s music tech mysteriously packs up. It’s a gripping moment, as Bailey – forced to abandon what looked like a climactic set-piece – cranks out two seemingly impromptu musical numbers in barely suppressed panic. But his – and our – anxiety is soon forgotten. A German-language, heavy metal version of Waterloo is top-drawer filler to have in reserve, and it’s greeted by a wave of audience affection that Bailey surfs back to safety.
Happily for him, the cockup comes deep into the second half, by which time it’s clear this is one of Bailey’s best shows for years. In contrast to 2013’s Qualmpeddler, which flitted bittily between odds and sods, Limboland settles on and spends time with stories Bailey has to tell, and subjects he wants to address. After a palate-cleansing primer on 2015 politics, which memorably tags Labour as a band you’ve loved for years who suddenly release a difficult experimental album, the first half takes happiness as its theme. In an age of “happiness indexes” and countries ranked by their supposed wellbeing, are we overlooking the transient, often trivial moments in which joy (rather than contentment) truly resides?
Bailey thinks so, citing as evidence the moment he silenced a jobsworth shop assistant by producing – after a suitably manipulative pause – his receipt for a defective toaster. Elsewhere, he finds happiness in pop stars being publicly humiliated, and pegs Elton John as “a preposterous, wiggy, button-nosed berk”. If that suggests Bailey’s verbal flair is intact – in a show heavier on standup than musical comedy – the point is gloriously proven by a set-piece about the phrase “not too bad, all things considered”. Cue a fabulously sarcastic takedown of that lifeless platitude, by way of a litany of arbitrary but poetically specific things that probably haven’t been considered at all.
Only the occasional sequence feels less fresh: a malfunctioning Skype call to a doddery dad; a stock routine on funny phrases in a phrasebook. More often, you get comedy that no one else would do from a comic blithely unapologetic about his own tastes and esoteric obsessions. Witness the routine illustrating the tiny but career-threatening difference between a rock’n’roll tongue and a concentrating tongue.
There are fewer musical show-stoppers than he usually supplies – the tech hiccup deprives us of one – but the two substantial anecdotes anchoring act two are a very acceptable substitute. One features an Arctic sleigh trip to the northern lights, which morphs into a breakneck “hell ride” threatening the bathetic loss of two aged parents. The second recounts the time Bailey met Paul McCartney backstage at the O2: an ecstasy of tongue-tied self-consciousness building by increments till we’re squirming on our host’s behalf. His hardware may be faulty tonight, but Bailey’s comedy is in full working order.
• At Vaudeville theatre, London, until 17 January. Box office: 0844-482 9675.
