Karen Koren: Bill hones his craft in Highlands

Bill Bailey - what a talented man! A few friends and I were lucky enough to have the directors’ box at the Playhouse last night, where he wowed with his brilliant show, Dandelion Mind (Gently Modified).

Bill first did try-outs of the show in the Scottish Highlands last year, before touring Australia and New Zealand. He also did a ten-week run in London’s West End at the end of last year. So now, Bill is bringing this better-than-ever version of the show, including lots of new stuff, to cities around the UK.

It features his trademark musical interludes, observations and stories of the road. He demonstrates new instruments, both ancient and modern, he sings an internet love song, a lament about punk heroes, Iranian hip-hop and plays a mean folk-bouzouki.

Thomas the Doubter gets a new look, the finer points of nuclear physics and the myth of intelligent design are all worked over in Bill’s own surreal style. He revisits the music of his youth with a French disco re-working of Gary Numan’s Cars, played in his own inimitable way, and some Wurzel-style remixes of classic German techno - just your normal Bill Bailey gig then.

So now I have plugged one of my favourite comedians, what else can I tell you about?

Oh yes. I was at the Forth Awards the other day and there is a Radio Forth presenter - and I would say very talented comic - who we should not ignore. I’m talking about the lovely Grant Stott. He gave a rendition of That’s Fife to the music of Frank Sinatra’s That’s Life which was worthy of any panto. He gets better every time I see him.

Also, the lovely comedians Craig Hill and Greg McHugh (aka Gary Tank Commander) were very funny, except that Craig called me ‘The Diana Dors of comedy’, which I will take as a compliment, even though I know it was the older, fatter Diana he is talking about.

But hey, better that than being called the Bette Lynch of comedy!