Exploding guinea-pig pyrotechnics? Snooker-playing pirates? It can only be Ross Noble, taking his popular brand of nonsensical free-association on another tour. There are some vintage Noble ad libs in the first half of this Oxford gig. But, as on previous viewings, I found his extemporised surrealism subject to the law of diminishing returns. For the first hour, he's a delight. For the second, he's diverting. But well into his third hour, Noble's interminable digressions make one long for curtain-fall.
The opening moments set the tone, as Noble selects from his surroundings the ingredients to cook up another freewheeling, usually animal-based, flight of fancy. There is a wannabe genetic engineer in the front row, and Noble's microphone is feeding back, so that noise becomes the sound of detonated GM rodents in a mimed mini-drama. Noble is capable of sublimely daft image-making. And of expressive physical comedy: tonight, he brings to vivid life everything from an inept rapper's walk ("The last thing you want to do is go into a gangland situation over-jaunty") to a marionette version of Pope John Paul II.
But in the second half of his show, the endless deferral of each routine's point - and, finally, their ultimate pointlessness - begins to grate. Noble may be brilliant at jazz-comedy, at devising riffs of ridiculousness off the top of his head. But he's not quite brilliant enough to sustain meaninglessness over nearly three hours.
· At Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (024-7652 4524), until Friday. Then touring.
