Ross Noble, Oakengates Theatre - Review
If you sat down and tried to transcribe a Ross Noble stand-up set you would end up with paper covered in a strange mixture of surreal flights of fancy and lots of 'ums' and 'ahs'.
A great deal of his act, which runs for more than two hours, seems to involve him making strange noises or doing animal impressions.
And yet, it works. The sell-out Telford audience loved him, but if you asked me to tell you one of his jokes, I really couldn't help you.
He doesn't really do jokes, as such. I'm not even sure if he has an act, he just seems to be making it up as he goes along. But he always knows when to rein himself in if thinks he's losing people.
He does a routine about how people evolved to learn about fear and danger by tilting their heads at a 45 degree angle, but thinks at one point he's gone too far. "On the Titanic there was probably everyone on the deck and. . . what, too soon?"
This thought leads, somehow, to Professor Stephen Hawking appearing on Deal or No Deal. It's impossible to see how he makes the connections. He just does and, when it works, it's very funny. He's at his best when he tells stories about his three-year-old daughter and long suffering wife.
The other day, he told us, his daughter came downstairs having dressed herself in 10 pairs of knickers and a life jacket. When asked why she replied, with a child's unanswerable logic, 'because I'm a princess'.
Like father, like daughter. Poor old Mrs Noble.
