Review by Ross Noble – The Master of Nonsense unleashes his amazing comedic mind | comedy

SShould we be more surprised that, three decades later, Ross Noble’s comedy still changes every night – or does it never change at all? They’re both true: no two concerts of this wonderfully uninventive comic are the same, and yet they all stick tightly to the same free-association formula. Tonight’s show, part of his UK Cranium of Curiosities tour, is no different. I suspect that these two hours of wildly disparate nonsense hit a fair number of pre-written marks, but if they did, they would be brilliantly hidden among the expertly improvised musical scores – dreamed up, developed and kept in constant dialogue with his audience – by Greg Wallace, fantasy statues and dugongs.

This is, and always has been, a remarkable achievement, of which Noble, now 49, is an effortless master. If I’m feeling crass (or when I watch his work too much), I might feel exhausted by the draining absurdity of his shows, which stubbornly refuse to coalesce into anything resembling a theme, point, or argument. Sometimes too, Noble’s commentary on its absurdity, and how astounded we are by it, is a bit over the top.

But tonight is one of those nights where it’s easier to marvel at the craft, and laugh helplessly at the many startling images Geordie’s comic mind conjures up. His hypothetical West End musical of the bad video The Human Centipede may be first base – but his gag about how his crew travels undercover is a keeper. The proposed TV game show, Hips or Piles?, will remain long in the memory, and the routine on how to stay safe in a high-definition factory will be a little masterpiece of surreal situations.

Then there’s a skit featuring Bear Grylls, Dame Judi Dench, and a desert jellyfish, concluding with the timeless assertion: “If he were a real Christian, he’d stick his leg under it.” You had to be there, of course – and Nobel is at his escapist best, taking you there, away from the rational tyranny of your life, completely free of logic and decency.