Last night The Girlfriend© and I went to see English comedian, Bill Bailey. Full disclosure, we didn’t pay for the tickets – I have friends in high places – so it was not a show I had been looking forward to for any length of time. In fact, I only found out I was going a few days ago.

Bill Bailey has never been on my comedy radar. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy his performance when I was there, because as it turned out he was a lot funnier than I had previously thought. He’s a very clever man who utilises his wealth of historical knowledge to crack jokes and educate at the same time. He’s also a talented multi-instrumentalist, and there were moments when I thought he could just as easily rock out for a while, if he ever got tired of being funny.

He was on stage for ages too. Without a warm-up or support act, he introduced himself at 8pm and didn’t finish cracking jokes until very close to three hours later. There are a lot of comedians who would have been out of the arena and on the way back to their hotel when Bailey was just breaking for his intermission, so credit to him there.

So, Bill Bailey has a new fan, and the next time he makes his way up here… there’s a fair chance I’ll pay face value to go and see him.