Ross Noble has been performing at the Adelaide Fringe since 2000 and I was lucky enough to see him at the Nova Cinema that year and have loved him ever since. Unlike his usual limited dates in a bigger venue such as the Thebarton Theatre, this year he is doing shows for the entirety of the Adelaide Fringe in the moderately sized venue the Cornucopia.

Have you ever thought of the PERFECT comeback to something someone said to you — only too late after the fact? Ross Noble has that rare gift of being able to provide these comebacks immediately after an audience reaction from the crowd.

Topics to which he returns throughout the show include his godlike status as it pertains to the storage of an oversized beanbag into an attic, eagles of differing sizes perched on either ends of a spirit level (a “haunted” ruler apparently) and at one point he attempted to politically correct himself with regard to gender diversity but then gives up.

The first half of the show centres on (for want of a better phrase) Ross’s frustration and rivalry with a nearby coincidental musical performance by an unnamed former contestant of The Block (you can work it out). While suggesting ways to slightly sabotage and undermine her show he actually comes up with inventive ways to improve upon it by introducing aspects of that television show which brought her to wider attention. Undoubtedly Ross’s show would change later in his run after said distraction is gone

Ross gives us a preview of his exploits and what to look for in his upcoming foray into reality television on Celebrity Apprentice which was brought on by a lack of work due to a certain global pandemic which he refers to as “the” covid. “Shoosh,” he tells any reviewers eager to share his experiences due to an apparent NDA he has signed.

This show is hilarious and I suspect there are only a few topics that are common to each show in this run and a majority of the material is him feeding off the audience reactions. The way he is able to go off at tangents during a show and come back to all of them is both clever and extremely amusing.