The graphics to Bill Bailey's new show, a horned gramophone/radiator contraption, aren’t so much hint as homage.

As you'd expect from a comic offering roadie chic with bug-eyed resignation, the stoners' favourite Monty Python, Terry Gilliam, is Bill Bailey’s presiding comic muse.

But where the Pythons offered demented flights of fancy, the affably disgruntled Bailey makes his surreal logic sound like an amplified version of the gobbledygook spouted by people with a late-night munchie habit.

Only the possessor of an inspired comedic intelligence could so seamlessly weave words such as 'solipsistic' and 'existential' into a set that references Ginsters, pot plants and a rant about Jennifer Aniston, let alone wrap Jean Baudrillard's concept of postmodernism around a story that starts with hoodies and ends with a hobbit wedding.

He may not set out to shock but he does a good job of twisting his audience's melons and there's enough force to keep the audience utterly with him for an hour and a half.

There's less of his schtick with the instruments, although his Kraftwerk-flavoured version of the hokey cokey is as inspired as the wonderful whimsy that connects the threads of the comedy.

The last third of the show features wide-screen projections and some silliness with a giant horn but Bailey with just his mouth for company is even more entertaining than Bailey with extra gadgetry.

Until Sat, EICC (V316), tonight 9.30pm, tomorrow to Sat 7.30pm, £16, £15 concs. www.gildedballoon.co.uk