Bill Bailey Live - Dandelion Mind (DVD)

Intro

Although I haven’t written them down, I have a few resolutions for 2012. Increasing savings is one of them, and another is reducing my Amazon wishlist. The two don’t really go together, but one method of reducing the wishlist is to rent DVDs rather than buying them (using my 6 month Lovefilm subscription). However, there are still those which I do ‘need’ for my collection. Being a Bill Bailey fan, I happily parted with £3.31 (Used, including P&P on Amazon) and bought Bill Bailey’s ‘Dandelion Mind’.

Bill Bailey

I’d be surprised if people don’t know who Bill Bailey is…he’s the bearded one who frequently appears on ‘QI’, ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ and ‘Have I Got News for You’. I became acquainted with him through watching “Black Books” (one of my two favourite TV series EVER), and following that my ex and I bought his stand-up DVDs – ‘Cosmic Jam’, ‘Bewilderness’ and ‘Part Troll’.

More recently I got the DVD of his “Tinselworm” tour, which was quite frankly disappointing, and I think I’ve only watched it the once – a lot of the material was repeated from his earlier stuff. Despite this, I was eager to see what “Dandelion Mind” had to offer, even if it took me over a year to finally buy it (released in November 2010).

Dandelion Mind

My friend Graeme and I have a bit of a thing with dandelions (and blowing on them), and just a mention of ‘dandelion’ makes me start laughing like a madwoman (incidentally I am a madwoman), so this DVD was a hit before I even put it on.

After the trailers (one being for the film ‘Paul’ – fab film…unsure if there were other trainers as I skipped through) we arrive at the main menu – Play, Chapters, Bonus and Subtitles.

The Show

The ‘Dandelion Mind’ DVD is a recording of his 2010 tour, this date being at the O2 in Dublin. We begin with a number of comments surrounding the Irish and the English.

Bill Bailey addresses various topical (and not so topical) issues in ‘Dandelion Mind’ – Wayne Rooney, Dan Brown, Obama, barnacles (!), empathy, Simon Cowell, Michael Winner, self-service scanners in supermarkets, Countrylife butter, the ash cloud, the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, Twitter, cremations, Revels, Malibu… and others.

One of the longer sections is Bailey’s discussion of images depicting Thomas touching “the wound of Christ” – this is absolutely hilarious, and I was actually laughing out loud. Talking of laughing out loud, I LOVED Bailey’s Internet Lovesong about Twitter (my links don't seem to work, so go to Youtube and type in Bill Bailey Twitter ) – and his acronym ‘roflysst’! Absolutely amazing, and almost up to the standard of “Hats off to the Zebras”.

To those who aren’t aware, Bill Bailey is an extremely talented musician, and ‘Dandelion Mind’ doesn’t disappoint – from air guitar to real guitar, from recorder to synthesiser, from a random Japanese thing to the ‘Oud’ – Oooooooooooooud. And he sings along of course.

His James Blunt song is an absolute classic (you can see it on Youtube and search for Bill Bailey James Blunt ). Bailey describes James Blunt as “more annoying than paper cuts”. Personally I don’t mind James Blunt, but this doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of it since it is oh so true. Bailey has such a talent for…well, just such talent in general!

The other musical bits are fabulous with some great videos projected on the screen behind him. At the end of the show Bailey is joined by Kevin Eldon (who if you’re a fan of Black Books you’ll remember as the ‘DIRTY’ cleaner in episode 3) for a song.

On a personal level the bit which really stuck with me was when Bailey says “I was so outraged I NEARLY threw my cous cous across the room”. Now, I went through absolute shit with my ex, but the only time I actually threw anything at him was the day I Frisbee’d my cous cous across the living room at him – yes, VERY ‘middle-class’ I know. It was a classic (albeit somewhat messy) scenario, and I’m sure Bill Bailey would be very impressed – perhaps he might read this review and see that yes these things do occur.

Just as you think it’s all over, and half of the audience have left the O2, Bailey returns to the stage and gives an excellent rendition of “Midnight in Parliament Square.” Those who have seen “Bewilderness” will know this well – those who don’t might like to check it out on Youtube - search for Bill Bailey Parliament Square.

There’s something a bit disconcerting watching a comedy DVD with Surround Sound – having people laughing behind your shoulder! The show lasts 1 hour and 31 minutes, and the DVD has a 12 certificate.

More?

There are two bonus features on the DVD.

“Scenic Roots” - a 44 minute documentary which follows Bailey on one of his tours, from the Scottish Highlands down to Cumbria. It’s well worth watching. I am so disappointed that I wasn’t aware Bailey was appearing in Penrith and Carlisle in June 2010. But I wasn’t aware of much which was going on in 2010 outside of my own head. And really, it might not have been a good idea anyway, as Bill Bailey was very much something that my ex and I would have enjoyed together. That said, time has passed now, and hopefully I will get a chance to see Bailey perform in the future – but for now I’ll have to make do with the DVDs.

“Nemesis of the insect nepenthes Bill Bailey” – a 2 minute clip of Bill Bailey at the Chelsea Flower Show (The Glastonbury of Plants). Bill Bailey has a keen interest in conservation and wildlife.

Final Thoughts

I would highly recommend “Dandelion Mind”. If you like Bill Bailey, you won’t be disappointed (you’ll know for sure if you’re going to like it if you’ve followed the links I’ve posted in this review). The DVD can currently be bought new on Amazon for £7.99, or less second hand. Alternatively you could buy the box set which includes this and 5 other DVDs for £39.99.

You can find out more about Bill Bailey on www.billbailey.co.uk - the website is cool! I visited it for the purpose of writing this review, and ended up buying a t-shirt and a book…the whole saving money thing is not going well!