The (very) odd couple

Double acts have always had problems communicating. Abbot and Costello feuded; Peter Cook resented Dudley Moore; even Cannon and Ball gave each other the silent treatment. But it took Noble and Silver to create an entire show in which the pair don't even glance at each other.

In the past, we've had our quibbles with Kim Noble and Stuart Silver's blend of conceptual art and comedy. They created a sometimes scintillating, sometimes wearyingly self-conscious Channel 4 TV series; an endearingly odd installation at Beaconsfield in Vauxhall; stage shows - including 2000's Perrier Best Newcomer-winning effort - that provoked puzzlement as well as laughter.

But when their latest effort appeared at last summer's Edinburgh Fringe, it was a revelation. A brilliantly bold, delightfully dense deconstruction of a comedy show, its sheer volume of ideas making other comics look like dullards. Noble - the hangdog one - jogs on a treadmill throughout, fag in mouth, while we see videos of him in private situations. Silver - the thin one - works the crowd, making us sandwiches, ignoring his partner while offering to go to the pub with us.

And, like Noble's home videos, these after-show sorties are for real.

'Stuart will take someone for a meal every night,' says Noble. 'And you can go and celebrate his parents' 30th birthday anniversary at the end of the run.'

His partner adds: 'I took people to the cinema at Edinburgh. It is a strange experience. But we've always enjoyed playing with our relationship with an audience. One day we'll invite someone to our house and they'll stab us, then we'll wish we'd never done it.'

They've received the odd arts commission - staging an unadvertised happening at a cinema screening in Preston recently, for instance.

But arts bodies tend not to like handing over cash to comedians. Not even to ones who are more Gilbert and George than Morecambe and Wise. And since Noble and Silver aren't often on stage or screen, recent cameos on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace notwithstanding... well, you wonder how they get by.

Silver gives a rueful chuckle. 'Yeah, that one has undermined us over the past few years.'

Noble adds: 'In the show, there's a lot of material about our part-time jobs, showing us leafleting or whatever. That is reality. There is a question of how long we can continue doing this.'

'When we finish this,' says Silver, 'Kim is back at WH Smith. And I'll be there pressing my face against the window every day, waiting for him to finish.'

Offstage, they're a more genial pair than their stark stage personas suggest. Even so, this is a show that goes to extremes, that wonders where life ends and entertainment starts. Noble films an encounter with an ex-girlfriend, for example - much to her annoyance - and heralds his grandmother's death to the camera, as he sits next to her in hospital. It's fascinating but it's not always pretty.

'When you do something live and it's confrontational, there's a risk of you being damaged yourself,' insists Silver. 'I think that's key in this show, it's quite bruising. If you did something this harsh on TV it might seem like an easy jab at someone. Here, people answer back.'