Bill Bailey brings his latest spectacular, ‘Vaudevillean’, to the Utilita Arena in Newcastle on Saturday 5th December. Seldom does a hotter ticket, or a stronger guarantee of a brilliant evening, pass through the venue – or even the city – and it is certainly decades since Bill commanded rooms smaller than those effectively large enough to house an aircraft.
Where do we even start at this stage in gathering together Bailey’s countless plaudits and credentials as a veteran comedic actor, stand-up performer and musician? How about decades of television presence on comedy quiz shows as beloved as QI and Never Mind the Buzzcocks? His acting turns in cult series such as Black Books and Spaced? Innumerable appearances in presenting, guest-star and voiceover roles?
If not already secure by that point, I’ll risk journalistic ridicule by declaring that he came as close as ever to attaining the double-edged status of national treasure when he emerged victorious from the lockdown-era edition of Strictly Come Dancing in 2020, an unlikely feat which made him the contest’s oldest-ever winner.
Against this many-striped, glittering backdrop of a career, Bailey’s greatest work has arguably taken place on stage. ‘Vaudevillean’ doesn’t immediately carry the punning brilliance or strikingly memorable phraseology of the titles of his classic run of shows from the 2000s into the early 2010s, but the promotional material certainly makes hay out of his importance within a particular performative lineage.
Harking back to a time “before streaming, before TV, before cinema, before even radio”, we are promised “a celebration of comedy, songs and multifarious skills” in the true tradition of vaudeville. If this isn’t precisely what Bailey, “perhaps the foremost practitioner of this great tradition”, has built a legacy upon, then what is?
Personally speaking, some of Bailey’s finest and most legendary fusions of music and comedy within his stand-up oeuvre rank among my favourite on-stage set pieces, and that was before I saw him co-headline the 2011 Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth. An especially heavy-metal-themed appearance, later inspiring his ‘In Metal’ collection, spoke easily to his adaptability in front of a mammoth crowd that technically wasn’t his own, even if thoroughly aligned in spirit.
Fifteen years later, Bailey continues to surprise and push the outer walls of his comfort zone. Seeing him nestled between nu-metal Mount Rushmore dwellers Slipknot and Limp Bizkit remains as big a compliment to his multifaceted talents as any.
Tickets, priced from £29.20 in advance, are available at utilitaarena.co.uk.
