Review: Noel Fielding, Colston Hall

Two words: audience participation. If they don’t make you cower in your theatre seat, you may enjoy the second act of An Evening With Noel Fielding. But you’ve got to sit through a wonderfully whimsical stand-up set first.

Aided by an animated moon, a giant Plasticine door and a man dressed as a triangle, Noel expertly steers the audience through the wild seas of his imagination. While the artsy yet endearingly childlike set pieces are visually striking, it’s the ease at which he presents arbitrary concepts on an accessible, glittery plate that’s most impressive. 

Most of Noel’s zany tales will sound garbled when recalled, because it’s not just the story of a triangle impregnating his wife with a Toblerone penis that’s hilarious, but the way he gently tells it amidst fits of giggles that makes his absurdity so welcome and tangible. He delivers a quirkiness that cannot be dismissed as random.

Many characters from his avant-garde Luxury Comedy series are brought to life tonight, the highlight being when Plasticine Joey Ramone gets stuck in a maze with David Bowie, Pacman, a Minotaur and a reverse Minotaur with the head of Gregg Wallace. But it’s not all daftness and Play-Doh: Noel occasionally breaks the fantasy world to reflect incredulously upon his own silliness. 

“I’m 42!” he exclaims in disbelief; while twirling about the stage pretending to be a tea leaf that has escaped from the confines of its bag. “There’s got to be a loophole, how am I being paid to do this?!” 

Which is a question the audience may have considered during one flat bit where Noel pretended to be half-chicken half-man. He fruitlessly waddles around squawking with a Southern American drawl before admitting “I haven’t really got an ending for this one.” It’s okay though – this momentary blip segued into a comical debate between Noel and his “understudy” Antonio Banderas about whether chicken-man was a joke or a concept.

It all gets a bit metaphysical in the second half. Noel emerges dressed as Sergeant Raymond Boombox, a fan-favourite character from the Luxury Comedy series. Sgt. Boombox is searching for Noel Fielding who has been kidnapped at his own gig. He wanders into the crowd to interrogate people on his own whereabouts, but the interaction is  awkward – evidently Noel is a bit too ‘out-there’ for the audience to bounce off.

Finally, it appears Noel has been trapped inside the Plasticine world. He calls for an audience volunteer to come onstage to rescue him, and what follows is simply a palaver of pantomime. Unfortunately, the volunteer they’ve picked has come with a heckler who just can’t stop shouting and flashing for the entirety that their friend is onstage. As much as Noel Fielding tries to hold us in the fantasy world, suddenly it feels like being at Butlins. With humour that utilises whimsy far more than wit, Noel isn’t particularly capable of silencing the slurs; resulting in a less-than-triumphant finale to an otherwise mighty evening.