Noble and Silver
at Gilded Balloon (Venue 38), Edinburgh

Mark Tyson

Noble and Silver are an innovative comedy double act - although with their clever use of technology and performance (debating with video images of themselves or chatting to imaginary friends), double act is not quite an adequate description.

We hear a lot these days about multimedia and interactivity, but aren't we really talking about TV, video, tape recorders and telephones? Noble and Silver are as at home with their technology as they are with silly costumes, conventional props, a mandolin and a recorder played through the nostril. They combine jokes, pranks, visual gags, both live and pre-recorded, in various and odd combinations. They maintain a distance from their audience which gives an edge to their inventive audience 'interactivity' - so it is never clear where the joke is heading. They send up their audience and act as critics of their own show.

Is it funny? Yes it is, but that's not really the point. There's something decadent about an audience that demands to be entertained and looks to punish performers who do not fulfil pre-determined criteria. I am reminded of a rugby-playing acquaintance who complained that he sat through the whole of a film version of Lady Chatterley's Lover, without getting a 'stiffy'. There are genuinely experimental artists around, and we, the audience need to rise (excuse the pun) to the challenge.