Brian Logan
- Journalist and reviewer
Press clippings Page 80
Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra
It's a waste to have the orchestra just beefing up Bailey's mildly amusing songs. Far better when the instruments are foregrounded; when music (Rossini; the EastEnders theme) is deconstructed to comic effect, and the orchestra provides the punchlines. Sometimes that's difficult - comic timing is complicated when 72 musicians are involved. But elsewhere, it's sublime, as stately form meets daft content, and Bailey runs riot in the candy shop of his musical imagination. A four-man performance of Saint-Saëns' The Swan on Alpine cow bells shows the giddy heights of pleasure to which this curious collaboration might yet aspire.
Brian Logan, The Guardian, 17th October 2008