Noble reprise

There are two easy ways to wake up with a sore jaw: enter a biker bar and question the sexuality of someone's beverage or watch comedian Ross Noble perform live.

I first saw the English-Aussie jester (a proud Geordie, he now spends 50% of his time here after marrying a local gal) on April 5 last year on his Randomist tour.

CM, AM and I caught him again yesterday at the crumbling Enmore Theatre. Ross's latest string of shows is entitled Fizzy Logic, not that that means anything...

Except for bits of the final half hour, I don't think any of his spiel was prepared. Most of the time he just questioned audience members and riffed off their replies.

And it was hilarious.

It boggles my brain how anyone can improvise an hour-long stream of sense within nonsense, take a 15-minute break, then do another 90 minutes - and never pause or fall flat.

Even more impressive is the way Noble goes off on tangent after tangent, then suddenly resumes the original story, leaving us stunned by his oral misdirection.

Elvis Costello is quoted as saying, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." I think the same applies here, so I'll cease my deconstruction.

If you want surrealism, lightning wit, wacky accents and actions, punchlines ya won't see coming, and can handle an aching mandible, get to a Ross Noble gig.