Ross Noble.

I went to see Ross Noble at the Theatre Royal on Friday.

I`ve been a fan for a long while, but this was the first time I`d seen him live. The thing everyone says about him is he improvises a lot of his stuff- and it certainly seems to be true. He spent a lot of time discussing the dress and occupations of people in the front row, which must be different everynight and he mentioned the hunting shop just down the road from the theatre- which he surely won`t do in Manchester.

Now I think that spontinaeity in comedians is a bit overrated. I know we all want to believe (for some reason) that these people are just making it up, but isn`t it a bit childish? It can feel like a cheat when you see a comic do the same act twice - but why- we`re not upset when Hamlet is the same two nights running. ( "I thought it was an accident when he drank the poison, but he did it the next day too.") If you loved an act the first time, went back the next night and were upset because it was all the same- then you need to grow up.

That said- Noble is brilliant, but we should praise his charm above his spontinaeity. What`s great is that we don`t care when he goes off at a new tangent because we know whatever he comes up with will be as good as the vague plans he`s detouring from.

So what did he say? Well none of this will make sense out of context but he touched on...
Narcoleptic horses.
The French speaking lifts in Mal Maison Hotels- The lift said sic. `ou et jou de port` - which noble heard as -`ello geordie boy`
Sunderland being rubbish- prompted by the Macams who stole the vacant box for the second half.
Flamingo hunting - the hunting shop having a decoy flamingo in the window.

One last thing- we passed the shop on the way home and it was a heron. So here`s a puzzler - either Ross Noble doesn`t know the difference between a Heron and a Flamingo, or he couldn`t think of anything funny to say about plastic Herons. Which is is? They both seem pretty unlikely to me.