Ross Noble: Tangentleman

Comedian Ross Noble in person, at the Palais Theatre last night for his opening Melbourne Comedy Festival show, was truly something to behold. Firstly, he couldn’t stand still for more than half a second or so (he said that was because it would look boring if he just stood at a mikestand, but the more likely truth is that he’s overflowing with energy); secondly, he couldn’t stop talking. Who needs a script, or indeed anything other than the most nebulous outline, when you have Mr Noble? In a frequently astonishing combination of bravado, bluster, piercing wit and insane leaps of ‘logic’, he improvised and riffed his way through two hours of sidesplittingly funny observations, assertions and anecdotes, pulling disparate facts, memories, audience comments and other bits and pieces together and combining them into rambling narratives which sometimes had a point, sometimes not, but were consistently hilarious.

Mr Noble is a genuine original, a guy with a truly humorously odd way of looking at things, who thrills the audience with his sheer audacity as he pushes further and further with his train of thought, well beyond the bounds of common sense and into the truly lunatic. That he manages to do this without being crass, cruel, belittling or gratuitous is very refreshing and says a lot about his own integrity.

I have never laughed so much in my life as I did last night watching Mr Noble build an incredible tale about two ladies in the audience who he somehow hypothesized as pirates, removing their wooden legs to fit instead a variety of garden implements, which they used to practical purpose. Obviously you had to be there to get this – so I recommend you go, see him as soon as you can, because he truly is one of a kind.

Alex Paige