BILL Bailey will be in Limboland for a long time, so long in fact that he'll still be there next spring, when he plays York Barbican on May 9 and 10.

On Wednesday and Thursday this week, Limboland came to Scarborough, or Scarbardos as the West Country comic delighted in calling Yorkshire's well-worn crown jewel of resorts.

The Spa's Grand Hall stage had Bill's name and show title in neon lights, a street light of the Gene Kelly Singin' In The Rain variety, a bank of keyboards, assorted guitars, a music sheet stand, and 51-year-old Bill prowling around in black shirt and trousers and that trademark remnant of flowing locks. There is something of the heavy metal/Spinal Tap world about his Limboland, but he could equally be the wittiest college lecturer you've ever met and the life and soul of a post-work Friday night at the local.

Bailey is often called a surrealist, and certainly he can bend the world around him to a surrealist perspective, like a Salvador Dali, as he turns Happy Birthday into a beautiful lament with the aid of minor keys and later proves "your National Anthem", Scarborough Fair, can be improved immeasurably by performing it in the style and language of German hardcore metalheads Rammstein.

He can be play the clowning yet truthful Shakespearean Fool, whenever he dabbles in political comment; he is a storyteller of poetic language and physical grace, especially in his story of a nightmare Norwegian trip to the Northern Lights; and he is a wonderfully gifted musical satirist, whether sending up Moby's songwriting with audience participation or crafting the world's saddest Country and Western song.

Bailey's natural disposition is one of happiness and so serendipity plays into his hand, as he makes merry over the regular inexplicable fall of feathers from above and mishears an audience suggestion of "seagulls" as "it's eagles".

There have been more philosophical Bill Bailey shows, not least 2013's Qualmpeddler, but Limboland is enjoyably mad yet sane, daft but delightful place to be.