I spent a lot of Qualmpeddler laughing but I also spent a significant portion of it with my mouth agape in wonder at the sheer oddity of what was unfolding before me. From the rhythms of Danish speech to One Direction to the logistics of getting sellotape off an owl: Bailey’s range is truly remarkable.

That said, the set got off to a slowish start and Bailey didn’t seem to be trying particularly hard to win us over. The opening jibes at Nick Clegg felt a little compulsory, though I suppose as Clegg is the Grinch who stole tuition fees he deserves whatever comes to him (LOL). The segment dealing with the various failings of Chantelle Houghton was both 6 years late to the party and dragged on for so long that it started to feel a little mean spirited. It’s not really all that big and clever to pick on an essentially benign stranger for not being as clever as you in a room full of people who are already on your side.

Bailey at his best is hysterical. His best is definitely his music. A special mention must go to the Jamaican style remix of the Downton Abbey theme tune, which was so unutterably trippy that I’m not entirely sure it happened. He can really play and brings the finesse of a genuinely talented musician to some top quality nonsense - if you want to hear a rendition of the Match of the Day ingle in the style of a Jewish folk song, you’ve come to the right place.

The problem with the set is that many of his sections are 10 seconds too long. Jamaican Downton Abbey is hilarious, truly, but it drags at the end. Similarly, any comedic potential in the search for the name for the top of your foot, the particular hilarity of which I must admit alluded me, is lost after a reticent audience is pummelled with it for what felt like 15 incredibly unfunny minutes. It's as if he’s really making sure that you’ve got it and you’ve understood and laughed as hard as you can about it. To describe it as scraping the barrel would be unkind but he milks some really funny pieces absolutely bone dry.  

Bailey’s political observations run the gamut from the derivative humour of a sixteen year old Caitlin Moran fan - David Cameron as a “laminated badger” and “shaved ferret” - to the insightful biting of a visionary. His riff on the development of language and fear that it is becoming flat and perfunctory is brilliant and ends, as everything in this set seems to, in a pleasingly bizarre manner, this time in the form of a heavy metal chant of “Never Eat Shredded Wheat”.

There is fat to be trimmed from this set but its ambitious scope, commitment to the surreal and willingness to be relentlessly silly makes for an entertaining evening.