Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy
Promotional art for Unrealtime
Cover image credit: via TMDB

Unrealtime

Ross Noble

BBC Two · 2004 · 60 min

Improvised, hyperactive stand-up with no script and giant blooming flowers.

Ross Noble spends his performance wandering the stage on a whim, pulling bizarre tangents out of brief audience interactions and letting his mind run entirely on autopilot. The centerpiece of the evening involves a woman in the fourth row whom he suspects is a nun—a theory put to the test when she starts drinking lager. The appeal lies in watching a comedian completely discard the safety net of a written script, opting instead to build a show out of random impulses, whether he is riffing on the jauntiness of sailors, suggesting that hip-hop artists try “keeping it vaguely imaginary,” or mapping out a world populated by voles.

Filmed during a month-long West End run at London’s Garrick Theatre in September 2003 and released on DVD in 2004, the show caught Noble at a pivotal point in his career. He was transitioning from a cult Edinburgh Fringe favorite into a major theatre headliner in both the UK and Australia. The production values reflect this step up, featuring a backdrop of giant plastic flowers that bloom as he walks out. While some contemporary critics felt that the grand, Victorian-era venue swallowed some of the intimacy required for his crowd work, the run cemented his status as a West End draw.

The set list

6 bits

  1. Stephen Hawking impression

    Flirts with poor taste by incorporating an impersonation of Stephen Hawking's disability into surreal conversational cul-de-sacs.

  2. Hare Krishnas on Oxford Street

    Details an encounter with Hare Krishnas and a tramp who gets embroiled in their midst, punctuated by absurd dialogue.

  3. Brazilian audience member

    Engages an audience member from Brazil, remarking that the country is known for nuts and waxing, leading to 'some of the best postcards you'll ever see.'

  4. Smuggling asylum-seekers

    Improvises inventive ways of smuggling asylum-seekers into the country after discovering audience members work for the Refugee Council.

  5. Jauntiness of sailors

    A running routine exploring and recurringly calling back to the jauntiness of sailors.

  6. David Blunkett

    Mimics the disability and mannerisms of politician David Blunkett.

How it plays

Tone
Surreal, whimsical, silly, and playfully absurd.
On stage
Surreal, genial, eccentric, and self-deprecating 'randomist' who reacts openly to his own bizarre flights of imagination.
Pace
Freewheeling, hyperactive, high-momentum stream of consciousness that rapidly shifts between spontaneous tangents and loose-limbed physical comedy.
About
Surreal tangents, Pop culture absurdities, Audience banter, Spontaneous narrative weaving

What the critics said

Highly lauded by critics as one of the most inventive, spontaneous, and engaging British stand-ups since Eddie Izzard, though some reviewers noted that his boundless improvisational tangents could occasionally overextend.

In the room: Energetic, deeply immersed, and collaborative, with Noble generating sustained laughter through intimate stall banter.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: letterboxd.com, comedy.co.uk, flixxe.com, comedycv.co.uk, chortle.co.uk, whatsonstage.com, yorkpress.co.uk, manchestereveningnews.co.uk, en.wikipedia.org, bbc.co.uk, imdb.com.

Backstory

Conceptually inspired by the television series 24; the month-long Garrick Theatre season coincided with media spectacles such as David Blaine's glass-box starvation stunt in London.

Details

Released
Taped
Garrick Theatre, London
Runtime
60 min
Where
BBC Two
Director
Ross Noble, Cal Barton
Honors
Official best-selling show at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Topics

More from Ross Noble

If you liked this