Bill Bailey: Qualmpeddlar, Brighton Centre, Brighton

At one point during the show Bill Bailey makes an aside about the last words of biologist JBS Haldane which were, according to the comedian, a comment about God having an “inordinate fondness for beetles". He then goes into a routine about deathbed quotations and the likelihood of coming out with a corker then having a snooze and muttering a mundanity just before you croak.

As ever, he combines erudite references with accessible silliness, also reminding us that his most recent media profile has been from appearing in gently enthused wildlife programmes about baboons, or his hero, the ground-breaking 19th Century naturalist and explorer Alfred Russell Wallace. I’ve not seen Bailey in the flesh since his days in the Glastonbury Festival cabaret tent back in the Nineties but tonight proved that, while his brain has grown ever more inquisitive, he remains just as fresh and funny.

He is constantly spinning out one liners – such as how the BBC turned down his proposed show, 'Arab Springwatch'

The stage set for Qualmpeddlar consists of five fake trees that mostly glow a lovely violet, a large screen which he utilizes for gags, and an array of musical instruments - two keyboards, a few guitars, and a piece of kit covered in a green throw which he only reveals for the encore’s explosion of hyper-silliness and which it would be churlish to reveal. Bailey himself is, as ever, clad in everyman clothes, basic jeans and black top, his high forehead, bug eyes and straggling long hair part of his comedic arsenal, riffing on the idea of himself as the Lord of the Rings nerd he would be if he wasn’t so bloody funny.

Bailey has two core comedic weapons. One is juxtaposing musical context so that, for instance, he plays the themes to a couple of well-known TV series in multiple different styles, ranging from jazz to folk, creating a sonic surrealism as well as an energetic party atmosphere that has his eager crowd clapping along. The other area he consistently mines for humour is intellectualising trivia, examining minutiae until the results are revelatory and ridiculous, as when he puts the words of reality TV celeb Chantelle Houghton – a recurring theme of the show – under his merciless microscope. He aims numerous barbs at modern celebrity, notably a sequence where he mocks One Direction with acute precision.

He is, of course a gag machine too, constantly spinning out one liners – such as how the BBC turned down his proposed show, Arab Springwatch. However, while much of the evening is pure, chatty stand-up, topical shots taken at politicians, notably a brilliant put-down of Nick Clegg, it’s the extended conceptual journeys he takes us on that stick in the memory. It will be a long time, for instance, before I put from my mind what he does to the hymn “Jerusalem” in an ostensible attempt to increase our interest in Christianity.

Bailey appears to have a particularly good night and keeps coming back at the end, shows us a short film about his well-documented owl-rescuing adventures in China and then, eventually, just wanders along the stage-front revelling in the cheers and applause. He well deserves them.

Bill Bailey on BBC News promoting Qualmpeddlar, including his owl-rescuing tale