Kim Noble’s first show for five years is the most remarkable thing I’ve seen this year. It’s hilarious and inspiring — yet also, at times, indefensible. If it doesn’t offend you at some point, check you’ve still got a pulse. I’m far from sure that I should encourage a man who appears to see no barriers between art and life. But Noble, now without his double-act partner Stuart Silver, has crafted an unforgettable hour of comedy. Or performance art. Or whatever you care to call this multimedia suicide note.

Before the lights are even down, the bearded Noble — in Superman leggings, bald cap, white face — has nabbed a volunteer. This man then spends an hour on stage with a bucket on his head. Noble projects his own talking head on to it, or that of his mother. After his early success, Mum tells us, Kim has suffered from deep depression. He’s been in and out of hospital. Old friends have outstripped him. “Catherine Tate appeared on stage with him,” Mum says. “Now she’s doing Hollywood. Am I bovvered? Yes, I f***ing am!”

So, armed with his video camera, his art-school skills and a bottomless capacity for self-abasement, Noble tries to establish his legacy. Time, he reasons, is short. We must make the most of it. He buys a copy of March of the Penguins, records his own 18-second cartoon version, burns it on to an identical disc, puts his version back in the shop. “Please use this extra hour and 25 minutes of your life meaningfully,” he tells the buyer. He does similar things to a hypnosis CD, some autobiographies, supermarket ready meals, and shows us the footage.

Is it all for real? Apparently so. He says he was arrested twice making this show. His ex is suing him for using her image, he tells us. And when he plays a phone conversation of him confronting her about an infidelity, a chill goes through your bones. And that’s before we get to his footage of him self-harming or ejaculating.

Crucially, though, he’s master craftsman as well as provocateur. His command of video and animation is superb. His pranks are thrilling because fully realised, fuelled by intelligence and despair. And he rules with a rod of iron — why do most punters agree to send texts to his ex and her lover? Yes, even the audience go too far in the show. The room crackles with laughter, dread, delight, disbelief.

Still, even for a show about going too far, he goes too far. Kim, please, tell me that the illegal things you show yourself doing with a feminine hygiene product are a put-on. Please. And when you say that you may throw yourself off Waterloo Bridge at 2am on May 27 — “I hope one of you will be there to stop me” — how hard should we laugh?

But in a world of easy jokes and easy jokers, Noble makes sure we’re never on autopilot. I hope it doesn’t get him locked up. But I adore the constant invention, the constant excitement. People blather on about the cutting edge of comedy. Well, for once, here it is. Let’s hope nobody gets hurt.

Box office: 020-7478 0100, to Sat

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