now at lumiere.net.nz
Ross Noble: Unrealtime
Acme Records2003, NZ$34.99 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley
“Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested, and the frog dies,” said the American author EB White. Ross Noble’s upcoming Wellington gig Fizzy Logic (St James, Feb 10, 8pm) is indispensable, as is Unrealtime. More proof the Geordie comic is (probably) the best British stand-up since Eddie Izzard, Unrealtime documents a performance from London’s Garrick Theatre. It doesn’t have all the magic of the live performance; you’re not as intimately part of the giddy improvised shards of audience interaction, such as a white boy in the front row extravagantly waving his hands like a rapper, around which Noble ingeniously constructs his shows.
But Noble weaves a scintillating, hilarious mosaic. He’s deliriously, delightfully imaginative, razor sharp, wildly cerebral yet down to earth. Once told “you look like every character in Lord of the Rings”, Noble’s physical comedy is as adept and intense. Noble’s inventive way of killing someone using a spike on a pig’s head occassions a breathlessly funny riff on genetic engineering and animal sex involving a pig and a unicorn. This weapons talk segues into an unusually fresh, funny take on Iraq (“I know we’re meant to take it seriously”) – air-conditioning looting, the infamous 45 minutes dossier (“No, that's Domino's Pizza”) and Blair sexing up a chip shop.
