Ross Noble and Friends

Ross Noble, as ever, was pretty eclectically excellent. Jumping about from topic to tangent, reporting back on the challenge of his reigning position as king of weird logic by his small daughter’s mind, and ankle-ambushing the audience with guesses at their born religion, as well as truly bonkers interactions with the first row that included a road-flattened tin of chocolate Heroes – this was pure fun. What difficulty there was lay with the format of Noble as extended compere. Providing two sets of his own, he ended both parts of the show with full sets from other comics – Henry Paker and Hannah Gadsby – both with quirky original ideas and a friendly delivery but no match for such a prodigious and madcap warm-up act as Noble. Paker was likeable but lost the momentum with his observational humour, although his surreal ‘unreading’ won back some of the crowd. Gadsby held her own with fun anecdotes of her Tasmanian family, but again lost some of the Noble-set energy of the room. A good night though, with a glimpse at some promising talent and an established legend at work.

Komedia, 12 December 2011

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