Bill Bailey - Tinselworm (DVD)

...you're best looking to comedy. Bill Bailey spent the obligatory years on the circuit, performing thousands of shows both solo and as part of a duo ('The Rubber Bishops'). He had the _de rigueur_ moment where he nearly gave up (when his Fringe show was attended by the grand total of one person) to work in telesales (it's the new McDonalds). He sometimes appeared on radio, and was team captain on the spectacularly useless Channel 4 sci-fi quiz 'Space ...
...own BBC2 series: 'Is It Bill Bailey?'. All of these were great: showcasing Bailey's likeably bemused befuddlement while allowing him to turn his rambling post-modern deconstructions and considerable musical acumen into veritable comedy gold. For instance :-

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QUH2OF8Y_8A

http://uk.youtube.com/wa tch?v=AQLuOea-cYg

(He did name his son Dax though. That was a bit silly).
... more

Success is a double-edged sword, apparently...

Into The Light

To anyone in the embryonic stages of a career in the creative arts, a time when dreams are strong yet distressingly delicate, and where the spectre of a lifetime in McDonalds enquiring 'do you want fries with that?' haunts your every move, such a statement must seem like the worst sort of whining: it's rather difficult to sympathise with the man who grapples with writer's block whilst simultaneously pondering whether he fancies a go in the Ferrari or the Bugatti later on. But still, success doesn't remove pressure...it merely forces it to take on a different form. No longer does one have to worry about putting food on the table, or fret about positioning a roof over one's head: now one is responsible for servicing the wants of an agent, a record company, a publisher, a grasping spouse desperate to appear in 'Hello!'...and most importantly, one's ego. And it's that last one that prevents retirement: you don't need the money, but you DO need to prove you've still 'got it'. Whatever the hell 'it' is. Just because you're big doesn't remove the desirability of becoming bigger.

Some people obviously have their eyes on the 'Hello Wembley!' routine from the start. Huge, slightly anodyne and obvious chorus? Check. Lyrics which sound profound until you actually look at them? Check. Frontman who feels the need to 'perform' regardless of whether or not there's anyone watching? Check. But what of those whose act is obviously 'cult', yet somehow, by luck (and excellence) rather than calculation, and without any noticeable compromising of their art, suddenly discover they've acquired a whopping fanbase? Because theirs can be the thorniest problem of all. Especially if they're a comedian...

A Spaceman Came Travelling

These days, if you wish to see an example of a 'career as a textbook slog', you're best looking to comedy. Bill Bailey spent the obligatory years on the circuit, performing thousands of shows both solo and as part of a duo ('The Rubber Bishops'). He had the de rigueur moment where he nearly gave up (when his Fringe show was attended by the grand total of one person) to work in telesales (it's the new McDonalds). He sometimes appeared on radio, and was team captain on the spectacularly useless Channel 4 sci-fi quiz 'Space Cadets'. He was nominated for a Perrier Award, but didn't win (coincidentally (see later), Dylan Moran beat him in 1996), and he could have gone the same way as other runners-up, such as Simon Bligh, Johnny Meres, Owen O'Neill...hell, even some winners haven't exactly pulled up any trees.

But he didn't go the same way. Someone at Channel 4 liked him enough to transmit his 1995 Bloomsbury Theatre show 'Cosmic Jam' to widespread acclaim. Someone at Channel 4 (although probably not the same person) liked him enough to cast him in Dylan Moran's brilliant sitcom 'Black Books'. And someone at the BBC liked him enough to give him his own BBC2 series: 'Is It Bill Bailey?'. All of these were great: showcasing Bailey's likeably bemused befuddlement while allowing him to turn his rambling post-modern deconstructions and considerable musical acumen into veritable comedy gold. For instance :-

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QUH2OF8Y_8A

http://uk.youtube.com/wa tch?v=AQLuOea-cYg

(He did name his son Dax though. That was a bit silly).

Then came years as a captain on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks', of countless appearances on other comedy panel shows, irregular-yet-high-profile acting work ('Spaced', 'Hot Fuzz', 'Skins', 'Saving Grace', 'Hustle'). And of course, tours. A comedian is only a comedian if he performs onstage, and Bailey has hoiked several highly successful and bloody excellent shows around the world: 'Bewilderness' (released on DVD in 2001) and 'Part Troll' (2004). All of this increased his profile and fanbase still further, so when it came to creating a new show, he bumped up against the classic problem of 'how can I fit in everyone who wants to see me?'

There are classically two solutions to this quandary:

1) Keep the venue sizes the same, but increase the number of shows. This, potentially, can leave you touring until the end of time.

2) Same number of shows, but bigger venues.

Bailey's new show, 'Tinselworm', went with the latter option, which means...arenas.

Far Beyond These Castle Walls

Comedy has been claimed to be 'the new rock 'n' roll' on more than one occasion, and as such popular comedians moving into arenas may seem to be a logical progression. But comedy has always somehow been a more intimate affair: believe me, it's a lot more exhilarating being in the front row at a comedy show than in a rock gig. And as such, it's always been even more hamstrung by the jump to the enormodomes. Comedy tends to rely on small and subtle gestures, rather than the huge empty ones that a band can always fall back on, and our modern culture is littered with funny people whose inherent funniness was swallowed whole by the huge vacuum of a really big room. Has Bill Bailey, one of the most talented of the current crop, bucked this trend?

If you believe the DVD sleeve, he has. 'As wonderful as anything he has ever done' trills The Times (which does make a pleasant change from being told how hilarious a show was by the staff writer at 'Nuts')...

Man On The Line

But The Times is wrong, perhaps reviewing Bailey's reputation or their own wishes for the show rather than 'Tinselworm' itself. Because, within the cavernous recesses of Wembley Arena...what makes the man special has been irrigated away, gushing out of the exits over the huge impersonal seating blocks and the myriad sponsored bars. The various states of affable confusion that play out over Bailey's face are lost at a distance of several hundred yards, and their relaying on a big screen within the venue seems to neuter rather than amplify their usual effect. The audience in the arena must feel this distance and disassociation, because where one would normally expect banter and heckling, what we get is random screaming during the quiet bits.

So Bailey attempts to scale up to his surroundings. We get an awful lot of video material: an opening animation of an amoeba gradually evolving into the Bill-headed Tinselworm of the title, a conversation between the real Bill and cloned version of aspects of his personality on the big screen behind him, a computed-warped Royal Family. All of this impressive, some of it's interesting, but you're kidding yourself if you consider it uproariosly funny. We have props too: more musical instruments than before, and an encore that starts with Bailey zooming around the auditorium on one of those Segway personal transport things to a backing of 'The Ride Of The Valkyries'. Evidently this is a blast for Bailey and the 0.01% of the audience he manages to high-five from his blazing gyroscopic chariot, but I'd imagine that for everyone else present (and the viewer at home) it's just some loud Wagner and a fleeting glimpse of a long-haired bloke.

So, once again we learn that not everyone, no matter how talented, can overcome the problems of filling an aircraft hanger with joy and merriment. But one would hope that the issues with 'Tinselworm' end with its setting and the associated compromises. Erm...

Unfortunately I'm not sure that's the case. Even taking into account a venue that voraciously slurps the very marrow from one's bones, it's difficult not to conclude that the basic material is patchy at best. Bordering on 'weak'. That's not to say there isn't any funny stuff here: Bailey's too talented for that to be the case, and the sections where he spins a yarn about wanting to be tattooed (awkward when you're hirsute, apparently) and compares trying to cancel AA membership to attempting to leave fundamentalist Islam are rather amusing. There are more like them, but there are a lot more that aren't. For example...

The whole show is frosted by the nagging feeling that its author has agonised to self-consciously write 'Bill Bailey-esque' material, which overlooks the fact that this should come naturally to him of all people (Q. 'Is It Bill Bailey?' A. Why yes. Yes it is). Surprisingly, the sections in which this is most apparent are his musical skits. So we get an anti-Asda rant ('Asda! I Ain't Gonna Be Your Bitch!' is based on his refusal to appear in an advertising campaign due to their Walmart association: laudably anti-establishment, to be sure, so one must assume his BMW ad a few years back was down to the punk credentials of German engineering, and the British Airways commercials were because they've never fixed any prices or carried out any dirty tricks against competitors). Decidely unamusing. Likewise when he gets an entire Hindi band onstage to accompany him through 'Duelling Banjos' and Radiohead's 'Creep' ('Hindi indie!', as he calls it): it's really technically impressive, and it must have been a riot for him and the band, but its shelf-life as a joke is limited to the time it takes you to realise 'oh, he's doing 'Creep'. Blimey'.

But at least those weak ideas are new. Some of his other weak ideas are weak because he's recycling himself: another 'Kraftwerk' parody, another scat-jazz bit, another 'EVIL!' rumination. And one routine demonstrates an astonishing and worrying development: when he implies that we'd be better served with the theme from 'The Pink Panther' as a national anthem the audience collapses in fits, while the viewer ruminates upon whether it was his gradually declining powers as a stand-up or his years of fronting useless travelogues that made said audience forget Billy Connolly (and probably others before him) doing the exact same joke (using the theme from The Archers) many moons ago. This isn't Bailey indulging in his renowned 'deconstruction of old jokes': it's 'outright theft'.

There are a few DVD extras, mostly surplus material from the show. It's no better than the main feature, but nor is it any worse, apart from the fact that it appears to have been recorded using a microphone whose batteries were running out. Regardless, they don't add a lot of value to the package.

He does nearly save the show by having Talking Heads's 'Once In A Lifetime' as his finishing music. That almost gets him a third star.

And he still hates Chris de Burgh.

Don't Pay The Ferryman

So, disappointing. Not disappointing on the 'Iggy Pop doing an insurance ad' level of 'disappointing', but still disappointing. It's never a good sign when the anti-piracy ad at the end ('Piracy stops future production! Piracy funds terrorism! Piracy killed Princess Diana! Piracy made them stop making Spangles!') is the funniest part of the DVD. But, he's a very talented man: he's entertained us hugely before, and I'm sure he will again.

But not via the route of this particular blind alley.

(Currently available for £10.93 with free delivery from www.asda-entertainment.co.uk. Y'know, if you choose to defy me). 

...less