Comedy review: Kim Noble Will Die

FIVE comedy stars don’t even touch the sides of what this breath-stopping show deserves. If I could, I would add five stars for Theatre, a Fringe First and an Edinburgh Comedy Award. And even then I am not sure I might not have to invent an award just for him because this show defies categorisation.

ASSEMBLY @ GEORGE STREET (VENUE 3)

This is visceral, graphic stuff; a kind of wonderful the like of which I have never seen before. It feels like it has been drawn, hissing and scratching from some heart of darkness in Noble’s soul. It totally obscures the line between comedy and tragedy. I remember laughing, crying, gasping, but I don’t remember breathing.

Around me I hear sometimes roars of laughter, sometimes bottomless silence, occasionally a cry of “oh no!” or a sharp intake of breath. As we – all except three of the audience – are ejected shortly before the end of the show, a lone voice in the silence shouts out: “You’re a c**t !” but no-one else seems to agree.

Noble’s mum – a powerful presence – appears, projected onto a bucket, as does Noble himself, as a baby. On the large screen that dominates the stage we see images and vignettes that take us so far beyond the edge of anything the comedy section of the Fringe brochure has ever seen that Doug Stanhope is a mere dot on the establishment horizon. Here there is self-harming, sadness, death and piss. Here also is hilarious stop-frame animation; ideas for giving back time to humanity; Des Lynam, Paul McKenna and Floella Benjamin and her Caribbean cuisine.

But most of all here is Noble. No comedian has ever put as much of himself into a show – both figuratively and literally. On the screen we watch as Noble gives “of himself” into pots, bottles, tubes, over books and, well, let’s just say he puts the “jerk” into “Jerk Chicken”.

But it is all in a very good cause. This is an hour I will remember for all of my life. And, I suspect, every time I remember, I will feel the way I do now. I hope so.

Until tomorrow. Today 6:20pm.