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.
But tonight is one of those nights where it’s easier just to marvel at the craft, and laugh helplessly at the many startling images conjured by the geordie’s fizzing comic brain. Maybe his hypothetical West End musical of latterday video nasty The Human Centipede is first base – but his gag about how its cast might travel incognito is a keeper. A proposed TV gameshow, Hips or Piles?, will linger long in the memory, and a routine about how to stay safe in a hi-vis factory is a mini-masterpiece of surrealist standup.
Then there’s the act-out of a scene involving Bear Grylls, Dame Judi Dench and a jellyfish in the desert, concluding with the imperishable assertion: “If he was a true Christian, he’d slide his leg under her.” You had to be there, of course – and Noble at his carefree, escapist best takes you all the way there, far from the rational tyranny of your own life, loosed from sense and propriety entirely.
• Ross Noble: Cranium of Curiosities is touring until 22 March
