Over the last couple of months, listening to Norm at night has been a life-healing balm for me. It's difficult to describe why I enjoy him, as I'm sure that, in anybody else's hands, this is not the kind of material I'd keel over in fits of laughter from. There's a kind of irrepressible magic in his delivery, with that impish charm and that grasp he has of his own preposterousness, which all seems to counteract the boredom I would feel if the same material were delivered by a regular 'shock' comedian, or someone who touts themselves as an enemy of political correctness.
It feels like I'm dancing around what truly makes him a great comedian, not digging into the substance of it, but, really, I felt compelled to express something of my love and admiration for him. As strange as it may sound, I think he's made me feel better about life, and listening to him has taken me back to those times (between the ages of 14 and 16) when I was first discovering comedians like Chris Morris, Spike Milligan, Monty Python, and Peter Cook. He's made me want to discover new comedy again.