Wow, just wow: it's not often an opening act completely takes your breath away but Julian Barrett who was doing the honours in this live version of Channel 4's comedy programme, Gas, was quite simply stunning.
Part of the award-winning Mighty Boosh show from last year's Edinburgh, Barrett single-handedly atones for all the sins of the so many kebab/ knob style comics who are currently cluttering up the circuit with their generic routines. There's imagery aplenty in Barrett's act, whether he's describing someone as being as "rude as toast" or talking about the "tubes of fabric" that are his trousers.
The MC for the night, Lee Mack, jollied things along in a most proficient manner but didn't really have the time to delve deep into his material. Instead, we got Chris Addisson who looks, at least from where I was sitting, like Frank Skinner's younger brother.
Addisson has got some good stuff but you can't help feeling that's he made the fatal mistake of listening to Dennis Leary when he should have been listening to the God-like Bill Hicks.
Striving a bit too hard to be ever-so-indigenous in his reference points, he committed the sin of telling the "alternative" version of the mother-in-law gag in his routine about Birmingham accents, but redeemed himself somewhat with a punchline about the "worst sound in the world is a Brummie trying to pronounce Nairobi".
Headlining the show was comic man-of-the-moment Noel Fielding, who lived up to all expectations. Fielding's a marvellous comic whose material displays so much dexterity and imagination that you sometimes fear he's been overdosing on J.B. Morton's (aka Beachcomber) collected works. Again, there was so much resonant imagery at play, as when he described someone as looking like "a sheepish dolphin" or when he brought us through a guided tour of a biscuit box - where he reserved all his spleen and anger for "Ginger Nuts". Admittedly, it doesn't translate into print but Fielding effortlessly weaves a magic comical wand to transform the utterly banal into fantastic flights of fancy.
Watch out for Fielding and Barrett returning to Dublin soon with their Mighty Boosh show. They are both quite exceptional.
