Surrealist Comedy is a Bright (Purple) Ray of Sunshine

The Noise Next Door. Albany Theatre, Coventry, for one night only Saturday 26 October.

Review by Annette Kinsella.

What the world needs now is love sweet love, wrote Hal David in 1964. I would absolutely agree, Hal, but I’d also argue it could do with a good laugh. Amid all the death and destruction raining down us incessantly, what could be better than a guffaw of mammoth proportions? This is where The Noise Next Door – comedians Matt Grant, Tom Livingstone and Sam Pacelli (fourth member Robin Hatcher was MIA for this performance) – come in. The masters of improvisation, who brought their stand-up show to the Albany Theatre, were on the money with their surrealist humour, the natural successors to Monty Python or to Vic and Bob before all the fishing.

Packed to the gills with weird and wonderful characters and scenarios, the show was less end of the pier and more a deranged Harry Hill fever dream. For those not familiar, the formula is based loosely on vintage television and radio classic Whose Line Is It Anyway, in which the audience are invited to contribute bizarre prompts and situations to which the players respond.

The quickfire nature of the structure showed off the considerable talents of the comics, who sparked off each other with versatility and wit. I’m going to go a step further here and argue this type of humour actually has its roots in rigorous academic thought. I have just read The Art Of Uncertainty by the excellent statistics brainbox Sir David Spiegelhalter, in which he asserts that ambiguity and improbability is an essential part of the human condition. This show takes that principle and runs with it, cranking the uncertainty dial up to 11. Who could predict a song involving a funeral directors staffed by babies and managed by Batman? Or a dating agency with a croquet-playing Nostradamus on its books? But that’s what we got. So there we have it – academic rigour. Thank you, Sir Spiegelhalter.

But back to The Noise. Amid the zaniness, the train of thought was not always easy to follow and the quickfire nature of the action sometimes  exposed the limitations of  the structure – the scenes occasionally dragged slightly as the comics grasped for a common hook. But it was delivered with such energy and chutzpah that the rough edges felt risky and authentic – all the things that make live comedy joyous. In a world that too often feels grim and depressing, The Noise Next Door was a welcome ray of sunshine. Except in their surrealist world, the sun would probably be purple rather than yellow. And made entirely of taramasalata.

See what else is coming up at The Albany Theatre: https://www.albanytheatre.co.uk/