Bill Bailey returns to the stage with a show celebrating the tradition of vaudeville, mixing comedy, songs and musical skills.
Bill Bailey is playing the Swansea Arena on Saturday 7 November, with a show called Vaudevillean that does exactly what the title suggests. It's a celebration of vaudeville, the prime-time entertainment of its day, which was built on a mix of comedy, songs and a wide range of skills. Bailey returns to that format as a versatile multi-instrumentalist and a multi-lingual performer, combining humour with musical prowess.
If you're not familiar with the term, vaudeville was the variety show of the music hall era—a sequence of unrelated acts, from singers and comedians to magicians and acrobats, all on one bill. Bailey takes that whole variety-show idea and puts it into a single set. He's a multi-instrumentalist who can switch between different instruments on the fly, and he's as comfortable with a song as he is with a joke. The show's notes describe him as 'perhaps the foremost practitioner' of the tradition and a 'modern Vaudevillean', which sums up the whole thing: he's taking an old-school format and running it himself.
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It's a night that leans on that variety-show spirit—comedy, songs and a fair bit of musical skill all in one go. Tickets start at £35.45, with a £3.95 transaction fee on top, and it's at the Swansea Arena on Saturday 7 November.
