Bill Bailey is an affable bloke, a pitch-perfect musician, a talented actor and one of the country’s biggest names in comedy. So what could possibly keep him awake at night? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Bill is plagued by niggling worries about the modern world – and these have grown into qualms.

“A qualm is low level anxiety which can blow up into full level worry,” he says.

“There are cluster qualms, assailing you from all sides. You start thinking about the environmental consequences of over-packaging, then you think you should be greener, then you think you should be carrying sugar home in your cupped hands instead of a bag and...aagh!”

Bill is channelling these feelings of unease into new show, Qualmpeddler, coming to Bradford next week. He explores the consequences of lies, the unending search for the Higgs boson and the poignant story of rescuing an owl from a Chinese restaurant, along the way performing some ‘religious dubstep’, his folk bouzouki and possibly a rap version of Downton Abbey.

The show has all the Bill Bailey trademarks; musical mash-ups, surreal imagery, sharp wit, songs, philosophising and silliness.

Surprisingly, for someone with a huge Twitter following, he says social media plays a role in ‘qualmpeddling’.

“In the olden days we were content with a bit of gossip, but now everything happens instantly, there’s no time to absorb and process it. It affects our ability to concentrate, we end up having to edit what we’re saying. Cumulatively, we’re being de-sensitised,” he says.

Born in the West Country, Bill started out as a musician slipping jokes into his act. He spent the early 1980s touring with an experimental theatre troupe, interspersed with stints as a lounge pianist. It was a John Hegley gig that inspired him to blend music and comedy.

In 1994, he teamed up with Sean Lock for an Edinburgh Festival performance and the following year his show Cosmic Jam earned him a Perrier nomination, leading to a TV broadcast.

His comedy shows, including Part Troll and audio-visual, comedic extravaganza Tinselworm sealed his reputation as a must-see live act, while his acting credits include sitcom Black Books, Skins and Doctor Who, and films Saving Grace, Hot Fuzz and Chalet Girl.

He’s been a regular on panel shows like Never Mind The Buzzcocks and QI and has explored his love of the natural world in TV shows like Baboons with Bill Bailey and Jungle Hero, re-tracing the steps of his unsung hero, Alfred Russel Wallace, who travelled across Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore unravelling the mystery of the Origin of Species.

In 2010, Bill toured the Scottish Highlands, performing to small, intimate crowds, then came one of the world’s biggest comedy gigs; playing to 60,000 fans at Knebworth, when he headlined the Sonisphere Rock Festival alongside such rock gods as Metallica.

“Music and comedy cross over now; it’s not unusual to have a comedy tent at a festival, and has become an arena event,” he says.

“Sonisphere was a step up, another level of acceptance because I was headlining a rock festival, but my comedy works well in intimate venues, too, like a village hall on the Isle of Bute. Comedy works better in a small environment because you can make banter and connect. In an arena there’s a spectacle, but you’re not looking out at people.”

Bill’s inventive mix of music and comedy, touching such subjects as sociopolitics, anthropology and astrophysics, is a winner with audiences of all ages.

“A lot of modern comedy is about shock value, but it can be gratuitous. For me, comedy is about laughing about pomposity, taking a wry look at life through a hall of mirrors,” he says.

l Bill Bailey is at the Alhambra on Friday, October 18 and Saturday, October 19. For tickets, ring (01274) 432000.