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From Laughs In The Parks 2011

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Ross Noble: Nonsensry Overload
Live Review
Swindon Wyvern Theatre

Even at its best, stand-up cannot hope to capture the same uncontrollable glee of friends sharing a spontaneous in-joke. That feeling of being rendered helpless with laughter just cannot be replicated in the artificial environs of a gig. Yet thanks to his compulsion to jettison the script entirely, Ross Noble represents comedy’s best chance of reproducing those ideal conditions

He is perfectly skilled in creating a unique shared experience; bonding with the audience over the fact that large amounts of what you’ll hear in his company won’t be repeated elsewhere. In such an atmosphere even the prepared routines, if you can spot where they start and end, are given a freshness

The first half of this new tour is largely improvised, and a good chunk of the second. A few seeds are planted early on for routines yet to flourish, but Noble thrives off the smallest distraction in the audience, which here in Swindon range from an unusual haircut to a man taking an unscheduled break to an usher taking his seat. As Britain’s leading bollocksmonger, he spins from these elaborately imagined scenarios Danny La Rue causing a disturbance at a bus stop, the ghost of Patrick Swayze shagging Scooby Doo or an extended analogy of a penis being like a cow. There’s no spoiler alert in mentioning these routines, as there’s minimal chance they’ll be repeated

His own flightiness is, of course, the biggest joke of the lot. ‘Is the whole show really gong to be about what happened in the darkness before he came on stage?’ he imagines the audience thinking several minutes into his thoughts on the subject. Anyone who’s seen him before would accept that might just happen, a supposition he merrily concedes

But it’s not just the puncturing of the overblown flights of imagination that’s funny, he creates genuine gags on route, so dodging the bullet of self-indulgent surrealism. Though he appears to be targetted at an audience who would be wooed by the idea of random whimsy, there’s more substance to his show than you would think. He has an unrivalled knack for the ad-libbed callback, too, incorporating plenty of his unplanned ideas into the twisted, self-contained narrative

There are waypoints, though – fixed routines he’ll seamlessly steer the one-sided conversation towards. He imagines what a Googlephone really ought to be, has his own take on the nonsense mythology of the Avatar movie, deliberately antagonising those who haven’t seen it, and shares some witty anecdotes about the extreme experience of entertaining the troops in Afghanistan. Some of these prepared routines sag a little compared to the speed of his improv, but they’re steered back on course

He’s also one of the many comics who have lost their dad over the last year, but for Noble this leads to inappropriate behaviour in the funeral parlour rather than considered introspection about the father-son relationship. That’s his style: never do thoughtful when daft is funnier

His traditional inflatable set is as extravagant as ever. Here an explosion of primary colours and cartoon representations of old routines – motorbikes, kangaroos, faces in muffins. It’s rather full-on, like a nursery school for attention-deficit children in My Little Pony’s Paradise Estate, but Noble would never dream of feeding us the fun so forcefully as this might suggest. Nor is he any longer a slave to besotted fans who leave gifts on the stage – a couple of well-judged presents are shared tonight, but he never gets bogged down with it, a definite flaw of previous tours

Always a good comic, Noble is stealthily getting better all the time

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Ross Nobles is one of the greatest comedians around. He always has me doubled up in laughter. Don't know how anyone cannot think he is funny. Keep up the good work Ross!.

Sophie, September 2011

Saw Ross Noble and friends at Aldershot: Ross turned up wasted, slurring words, and improvised 99% of the show. Billed to compere the evening which two other new acts, he ended up waffling on for an hour and a half including; 40 minutes of wheelchair related comedy, yes really, much of which was just bad taste, also clumsily running with other weak jokes for long periods of time. I have seen him before and found him very funny, but on this he occasion was cringeworthy. Ross had moments but they were few, and were completely overshadowed. The only saving grace was Sarah Kendall who was fresh, witty and very funny. Unfortunately this moment was sandwiched by Ross’s ramblings, the likes of which I could have got for free in the local Wetherspoons. It left nothing but an overwhelming sense of disappointment.

Showbizjonny, July 2011

Genius

hammy, April 2011

Saw Ross last night in Belfast,I will go to more of his shows in the futureT ell him this is from Yoda.

Ronnie Robinson, November 2010

Saw Ross in Grimsby last night and he stormed it. Absolutely incredible routines and great crowd work. You can barely spot where the routine end and the improv begins. An inspiration to idiots like me who want to do stand-up even half as good as he does.

Lukas Wild, October 2010

just seen him in Wolverhampton. Best stand up comic I have seen in years.best value for money we will be going to see him again hopefully in london. Seeing someone like ross makes us wonder why he isn't on our telly with his own show when we watch all the crap that is being put on our telly. 10 out of 10.

sarah, October 2010

Saw Ross Noble this week in Swindon and was disappointed. Found myself yawning and looking at my watch well before the end of the lengthy show. 15 minutes on Avatar is 14 minutes too long for the large number of people in the audience who haven't seen it, us included. Some of the extended gurning and lumbering around the stage would have been better suited to an audience of seven year olds.

Paul, September 2010

I don't find him funny at all. Why alot of people do God only knows!

Rosie, October 2009

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