CityLife

KEEP your eyes peeled at one of Bill Bailey’s 11 performances this month in Salford and Manchester, and you’ll notice that the gig doesn’t start with the usual welcome message.<br /> <br /> And that’s because Bailey is a comedian who simply can’t help himself; if there’s a spot of comic tomfoolery to be had, then he’ll grab it with both hands.<br /> <br /> In The Lowry’s Narnian backstage area, Bailey’s leaps around behind the show’s big screen, forming shadow puppets and peering at the audience.<br /> <br /> Not everyone in the sold out house notices this pre-show horseplay – but that’s half the reason for doing it; that one audience member might catch something another misses is a big part of Bailey’s shtick (one need only listen to the way he fires out throw away lines of comic gold for evidence of that).<br /> <br /> This is (in theory) the opening night of his new tour, Bill Bailey Live, but the show is already well bedded in.<br /> <br /> Unsurprisingly, it draws on chunks of material from his arena tour – Tinselworm – a performance that BB Live grew out of during a 10-week residency in London’s West End.<br /> <br /> It’s a gamble throwing in material you’ve been using for two years, especially when it’s also been immortalised on DVD for over a year.<br /> <br /> But such is Bailey’s charming manner and the immortal comic genius of the material, that it comes across as freshly delivered almost two years after he first uttered it.<br /> <br /> Improvisation proves he’s no script slave, and he spends a good 15 minutes messing around with audience responses and opening night gremlins.<br /> <br /> A booming blast of feedback from above is quickly turned in a skit: “Take me now,” he yells at the sky. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been heckled by a tractor beam.”<br /> <br /> Salvador Dali<br /> <br /> With Bailey, most roads lead to the guitar or a piano. A little local material about the Lowry-inspired dirge Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs leads to a fantastic trial-and-error parody with other artists’ names (Salvador Dali proving the most satisfactory) while a politicised version of the Friends theme tune drags in some current affairs.<br /> <br /> It’s his ability to pick these stranger comic themes that makes Bailey special.<br /> <br /> Take his observation that instructions on painkillers alienate the middle classes, for instance (“Do not operate machinery?” he baulks. “How about, ‘Do not operate a cafetière’.”), or his social networking song I Unlike U.<br /> <br /> Facetious? Yes. Non-compliant – certainly. “I got thrown out of the Trocadero Centre in London for sarcasm,” he says.<br /> <br /> “The security guard said he was authorised to use ‘minimum force’ to remove me. What was he going to do? Flick me out of the building?”<br /> <br /> What really sets Bailey and this show apart, though, is its clever ending – an hilarious silent film set to a dramatic live soundtrack that brings together all of the bizarre tales and quippy asides he’s told throughout the evening.<br /> <br /> It’s a test of how diligent the audience has been, but moreover, it’s remarkable proof of how splendid a physical comic Bailey is.<br /> <br /> That he holds it back until the end of the second encore says something about his showmanship, too, and shows more than a smattering of contempt for those who sneak out after the first encore to avoid the queues in the car park.<br /> <br /> Proof that good things really do come to those who wait.<br /> <br /> Bill Bailey's at The Lowry until Sunday, June 14, £25/£27.50, and then The Palace Theatre, June 16-20, £25.<br />