Back in the early 1990s, some particularly lazy journalists decreed comedy 'to be the new rock 'n' roll'. In fairness, comedians like Bill Hicks were more overtly political, more visceral than any shoegazer you cared to mention, while Rob Newman was fancied by far more prepubescents than Clint Boon could ever hope to be. But though the aforementioned Hicks and The Mary Whitehouse Experience created some of their best loved routines around their love of music; musical comedy itself had, barring Vic and Bob, been pretty much consigned to the dustbin.

This decade, however, has seen a huge sea change, with the lines between music and comedy becoming ever more blurred. Flight of the Conchords are probably the obvious example, with the dialogue in their show seemingly written (albeit bloody wittily, in the first series at least) to fill the gaps between the songs, which themselves are lovingly crafted, extremely well played pastiches. The boys can play. Unlike Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh, who is the ultimate wannabe rock star that simply refuses to accept that he won't make it as a musician. He parties with bells at the Hawley Arms. He wears outrageous/camp/ridiculous outfits. He gets drunk a lot. But still, he's not quite what he wants to be; a bona fide rock 'n' roll star. But by god he tries, as you can see with their Future Sailors Tour DVD. The documentary is spliced with 'boys on tour' imagery, regularly focusing on screaming adulation and tour bus japery. The live show itself descends at the end into a punk pop gig. I caught the show live at Brixton Academy (the DVD features the O2 enormodrome gig..stadium comedy, who'd have thought it?) and the feeling was that Fielding and Julian Barratt were truly living their dream; albeit through the medium of some truly horrible music.

For me, a far more successful melding of the genres can be seen with Bill Bailey and his Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra; a two hour show (at the Albert Hall, no less) in which the BBC Concert Orchestra are at Bailey's beck and call. A fact that Bailey exploits for all it's worth, getting them to segue at a moment's notice from epic soundscapes to elevator music. Bailey, a prodigiously talented multi-instrumentalist himself, simply gets music, and so an obviously complicated and finely honed show seems altogether effortless. In his usual style, there's the vaguest hint of a narrative to the whole affair: it's an introduction for the uninitiated into the orchestra, and the roles that each instrument play. Really though, it's an excuse for Bailey to take his inherent silliness up to 11. So, what begins as a segment on the understated but vital oboe, becomes a rant about the 1989 dropping of the word 'Farm' from Emmerdale Farm and the oboe from the theme song. Apparently this was as a direct reaction to the downfall in the same year of communism. It's all so obvious when he explains it; the word 'Farm' is dropped because of its "association with collectivisation and Soviet oppression", while the oboe was jettisoned due to its "conical order being a symbol of the old order." Similarly, what begins as an examination into the bassoon climaxes with the entire orchestra playing an implausibly funky version of 'Staying Alive' - apparently every single bassoon player is obsessed with The Bee Gees.

Of course, those with any knowledge of Bailey's past shows will know that he wasn't going to let the orchestra get all the musical glory. He uses a theremin to play the part of a jellyfish (don't ask), and utilises the medium of Bryan Adams soft rock ballads to pay tribute to the zebra as a symbol of racial harmony. It's expertly conceived, performed, and is consistently funny; never more so than when getting the orchestra - who, incidentally, look like they're having a blast - to play the theme and incidental score to an imagined 1970s cop show as Bailey narrates. It's all done at a typically gentle, accessible pace, and I can't recommend it enough.

So, two DVDs, two very different ways of approaching the fusion of music and comedy. Although there's much endearing about The Boosh (and in particular Fielding's wide eyed air of constant excitement at his world, which is so infectious that I can't even hate him for seemingly being mates with both Razorlight and Franz Ferdinand), it all just comes so naturally to Bill Bailey. He knows he could never be a rock 'n' roll star - and I'm not even sure he'd actually want to be one - he just happens to possess an equal love for both musical and comedy, and has found the ideal vehicle with which to express it.