Should we be more amazed that, three decades in, Ross Noble’s comedy still changes every night – or that it never really changes at all? Both are true: no two gigs by this fantastic off-the-cuff comic are ever the same, and yet all of them cleave tightly to the same free-associating formula. Tonight’s show, part of his Cranium of Curiosities UK tour, is no different. I suspect these two hours of wildly divergent nonsense hit a fair few pre-scripted marks, but if they do, it’s deftly concealed among the expertly extemporised riffs – dreamed up, developed and kept going in constant dialogue with his audience – on Gregg Wallace, fairy figurines and dugongs.
It is, and always has been, quite the feat, of which Noble, now 49, is the effortless master. If I were feeling churlish (or when I’ve watched his work too frequently), I might feel fatigued at the attritional meaninglessness of his shows, which stubbornly refuse to coalesce into anything resembling a theme, point or argument. Sometimes, too, Noble’s meta-commentary on his own wackiness, and how mindblown we supposedly are by it, gets a bit much.
