“This is ambitious”, a slightly bewildered-looking Pierre Novellie admitted before launching into his solo stand-up show at the Corpus Playroom last night. He wasn’t wrong. Trying to be funny for an hour on stage is courageous, especially when a degree beckons. But Novellie can take comfort in the fact that Nonsense was good. Seriously good.

Novellie has an incredibly lucid conversational style which transitions effortlessly between pre-written material and audience banter, smattered with supremely self-controlled laughs at his own jokes. Few comedians in Cambridge can deliver their material with such cool and draw their audiences in so completely to the stand-up experience. Nonsense was never less than enjoyable, and at times had the audience in fits of laughter.

The evening’s stand-out moment was an observational bit about advertisements for medicine, which included what should from now on be called the Novellie Maxim: “If a women on an advert is wearing a trouser suit, there is never something not wrong with her organs”. Novellie’s jokes about ‘red glow’, ‘blue arrow’ and sky-narrators were well crafted and extremely funny, as were his fantasy about snapping the necks of sluggish elderly tourists and story about his persecution by the pigeon mafia. Dare I mention, there was also an enjoyable piece of improv about TCS and their failure to send a reviewer to the gig.

Not all of Nonsense’s material hit home. Novellie's reminiscences about flyering at the Edinburgh Fringe and complaint about Heston Blumenthal not being a real chef were more student-comedyish than should be expected from a consummate pro like Pierre. Still, the audience never stopped giggling, and Novellie's strongest material was well distributed throughout the evening.

More serious was the show’s overall lack of polish. This was excusable given the length of the set and Mr Novellie’s (presumable) other commitments. Yet it was difficult to ignore the regular breaks in the routine as Novellie consulted his notes, which had been judiciously taped to the ceiling, presumably in the anticipation that they would be regularly needed.  Still, Nonsense will doubtless become more fluid with each of its four remaining nights.

Ultimately, Nonsense was an original and enjoyable hour of stand-up delivered by one of the most skilled and confident comics at the University. Who else but Pierre Novellie would think to present his audience with the lyrics to the Xhosa translation of the Spider-Man theme song and actually manage to get them to sing along? It’s only the sixth day of Cambridge Christmas; treat yourself to a ticket.