Review: Ross Noble: Nonsensory Overload – Middlesbrough Town Hall
Ross Noble
Ross Noble doesn’t do things in half measures, but I was surprised on entering the Town Hall’s main stage to find only a handful of small inflatables lining the stage including an octopus, rubber duck and large tank. I’ve been lucky enough to catch Noble on his last three tours and I’m consistently surprised at the extent he goes to with his set pieces and stage props . He is in no way, shape or form one of those black back drop and mic stand, suit wearing comics who promote blandness. Accompanying the inflatables was a projected backdrop representing the Nonsensory Overload, bright and swirling colours and images centred around a giant Noble head with rotating images looping around Noble paying tribute to his past routines on such things as a child with a bum for a face and finding faces in muffins.
A short animated clip preluded Noble setting out the ground rules and warming up the audience with daft jokes then the backdrop fell revealing an enormous inflatable backing, answering the question as to why he’d downplayed the inflatables this year – he definitely hadn’t.
As a result of this I can’t really tell you what happened in the first 10 minutes of Noble’s show, the stage was just too busy. I found it difficult to take the ‘Nonsensory Overload’ in while Noble himself made no mention of his backdrop, as if he didn’t even know it was there. The first half of the show was as loosely structured as any show could be, an odd noise made by an audience member prompted a long routine about Scooby Doo and some local landmark in the shape of hoops which he clearly must have seen earlier that day ended up being the basis for a gag bout how local Middlesbrough residents trap and kill strangers, which was somewhat spoilt later on when a punter tweeted Noble during the interval to tell him about a death that occurred during the hoop construction.
Tonight’s show was actually rather death based, with many stories forming around that concept, not exactly a topic rich for comedy you’d imagine but of course Noble made it work. Much of the show can be psychoanalysed and interpreted by what Noble has done that day or what he’s into at the moment, such as the super bikes story, hoops routine and by God you would have been confused if you haven’t seen Avatar – Noble’s lengthy routine on the subject dividing the audience immediately. But then again Noble always does this, last year talking about the TV show Heroes and the year before Hurley from Lost.
The second half began as every Noble gig in recent years has, with him tidying up various ‘gifts’ left by audience members. This was funny and original in its beginning but now more resembles Ross receiving crap presents on Christmas Day and having to pretend to be pleased. The gift giving certainly splits the audience, those who dislike it have to bear it while those who love it put more and more items on the stage each year. Out of the dozens of letters, notes, gifts and other pieces of rubbish the only funny present to be placed on stage was a pair of 3D glasses. In my opinion, that 3 second laugh over the glasses is not payment enough for wasting 20 minutes of the second half. There is a line and we have clearly crossed it.
This is no fault of Noble, obviously, and he keeps things going comedically while having a tidy up – but I feel it restricts his comedy to what is placed in front of him, when we all know what he is capable of when given the reigns to run free. The second half had less of a flowing, unstructured feel as he had to speed through routines and finish half thought out ideas from part one of the show. Noble also took a serious tone, taking comedy from real life events from his father’s death. Ross has said he finds it therapeutic to talk about such subjects on stage – and his father’s wheelchair routine and one particular punch line used to close the show were both excellent pieces of material, showing Noble’s range and ability. He’s not just all about monkeys with owls sellotaped to their eyes – there’s some genuinely brilliant and well thought out stories among the surrealism and whimsy.
If you’d like to find out more about Ross Noble’s Nonsensory Overload tour, his website can be found here.
