Bill Bailey: Bewilderness

In the mid-nineties I never got Bill Bailey and always felt he was a Goth type who only did jokes about rock music and Star Trek etc. However since then he has done the wonderful Black Books which gave his surreally a structure to sit within. This show was filmed in Wales in 2001.

For most of the show he manages to do his `bewildered' thing very well and mixes his observations with jokes and musical interludes. And most of it manages to be funny, even if his observations are a little weak and the confused thing gets old quite quickly.

The musical thing is mixed too. Some of the songs are funny because they do themes in different styles – however after 15 seconds the joke's gone even if the song goes on for another minute. Compare him to the style of Rich Hall who uses his songs as jokes, building to a punchline everytime – Bailey's song is the jokes whereas Hall's is the routine.

Overall I still enjoyed it and fans of Bailey will not be disappointed. However I got the feeling he ran out of steam towards then end and even though I was smiling I was waiting for a real good laugh in the last 15 minutes.