Interview taken from HermAphrodite #10

And from all this talk, we move on to the future…

Me – “You’ve said that ‘most things you can convey through stand-up’ (Sunday Herald); so you don’t feel the urge to write a book?”

Ross – “Not for ages. But I’d quite like to.”

Stories are a-buzzing inside him…

Ross – “But only for my own enjoyment. And if people wanted to buy it, it’d be quite good.”

Me – “For you and the publisher…”

Ross – “Yeah yeah. Financially it’d be very good. But I do think most things that I’ve got to say can be said through stand-up. And anyone that says that there’s stuff that can’t be said through stand-up… can’t be very good. Stand-up just fills every creative impulse that I have. So if I have a good idea for a film I just tell the audience.”

Me – “So possible acting future?”

Ross – “Well I wouldn’t want to be in a sitcom or any of that shit…”

Me – “Nonono. I watched that David Baddiel thing (grimace) for the first time yesterday…”

Ross – “Oh my lord what IS he doing?”

Me – “Material from 1992, mostly.”

Ross – “Yeah, just crowbarred into the script.”

Me – “With horrible stereotypes…”

Ross – “It’s dreadful.”

So that’s a big NOOO to the comedian-gets-sitcom-and-automatic-personal-happiness path.

Ross – “I would act, if it was a film and I got to be dressed up. With animatronics.”

Me – “Possible pantomime season?”

He just starts laughing.

Me – “I’ve seen Doobie Duck in panto…”

Ross – “With his Disco Bus?”

Me – “Oh yes. So that’s kind of animatronics. It was horrible. But then he was onstage with The Krankies. So it all balanced out…”

At this point, such childhood reminiscences are halted by the appearance of the evening’s promoter, happily looming in a manner which suggests through subtle body-language ‘when are you leaving cos I’m off now…’ In the process of his thanked goodbyes, conversation turns (in a tape-stopped off-the-record way) to the more scummy side of the life of a comedian. A subject on which much can be said. And is. With the result that after half an hour I have a full array of reasons not to go into this business, and the next question on my lovely list somehow seems incredibly trite in comparison. And maybe just that little bit silly.

Me – “Would you want your own zoo?”

Ross – “Why would you think I would want my own zoo?”

Me – “Gatwick Zoo is up for sale at the moment.”

And I want it. Though I don’t have a million pounds handy. But it has prompted zoo-related pangs. In others of my circle. I was just wondering if anyone else was that inclined.

Ross – “I probably wouldn’t want a zoo.”

Damn.

Ross – “I’d like to have a theme park. Seriously.”

Me – “Themed to something better than Flamingos?”

Ross – “Yeah. I’d like to start with paintball and quad bikes. Have a massive chunk of land out in Australia. For quad-biking, water-sports, rock climbing, all that type of thing. And built it up really BIG.”

Me – “So like Center Parcs but with roller-coasters?”

Ross – “Um, yeah. Kind of. Maybe a bit different. But definitely at some point in the future. Seriously.”

And now primarily because on one family holiday my brother and I were promised a theme-park as reward for patience in face of national parks and the theme turned out to be 18^th Century American MidWest (the only ‘ride’ was the lake’s rope-raft), on behalf of swindled children the world over, I continue to press the premise question.

Me – “Would there be a theme to this theme-park?”

Ross – “Yeah. Probably a sort of Tolkein type thing.”

Me – “Where everyone has to come with a beard…?”

Ross – “Yeah. I would quite like a really full-on proper fantasy place. But it sounds a bit too much like a place where people who go to play ‘Dungeons and Dragons’.”

Me – “And you’d just oversee it all in a big tower?”

Ross – “I’d just turn up and play.”

Me – “So you basically just want it all in your back garden, and then make a profit out of it?”

Maybe with some sort of salon out there too. Cos Ross has a way with hair. Oh yes.

Me – “Live haircuts in Nottingham?”

Phil Kay says…

Ross – “Yeah, I did that.”

Me – “Like a trim…?”

Ross (happily) – “No, he was totally bald.”

And there was a reason. This was no random snipping.

Ross – “I was trying to get him to cut his mullet off. So we had a whip-round, got about a hundred quid, and cut this kid’s hair down.”

But he didn’t get the money. As a friend had also had his hair cut onstage.

Ross – “We asked the audience who’d won, and this one kid had a bald patch in the middle with hair all around it, and they went ‘him’. And he just grabbed the money and legged it.”

Leaving his newly shorn friend behind.

Which you don’t see enough in comedy clubs. Or Nottingham.

For that alone, I think Ross is deserving of some sort of commemorative plate. To be added to his growing trophy collection. Of which the one I’m most intrigued by is the Barry Award.

Me – “I like that one. It sounds like it’s just a bloke called Barry saying ‘ooh, he’s funny, I’ll reward that’…”

Ross – “That’s what it is.”

Me – “…Giving you a tankard with a little sticker on the bottom of it with your name on it.”

Ross – “Yeah!”

Cool.

Me – “Have you got a mantelpiece for your awards?”

Ross – “I’ve got three mantelpieces in my house.”

But they’re not all crammed with shining prizes.

Ross – “I’ve got a sort of office thing, and they’re on a very top shelf. I haven’t put them by the front door or anything. Occasionally I’ll look at them and go ‘oh yeah I’m quite good’. I don’t spend a huge amount of time dwelling on them, you know?”

And not just for reasons of ego minimisation.

Ross – “If you start to get excited about awards, then you have to pay attention to all the bad stuff people say about you, take the rough with the smooth…”

Nice to have then. Lending the room a certain air of class.

Me – “So have they made you more of less likely to drink fizzy water?”

He starts laughing. And then slowly turns the plastic bottle in his hand so as the label faces me. Evian.

Me – “Evidently no.”

Ross – “I can’t stand the stuff, to be honest.”

But if you win the Perrier, do you get a year’s free supply?

Ross – “You kind of do. They give you a big crate of champagne, and as much fizzy water as you could possibly want. And I’ve got a load of t-shirts and towels.”

The perks of a beverage-related award nomination…

Ross – “They did ask, actually, ‘is there anything we can do for anyone’ and I went ‘yeah, I want a flag, a big flag.’

Me – “On top of your house?”

Ross – “Yeah!”

Flag-making possibilities, it must be noted, are not the only freebie incentives to join the comedy circuit. Oho no. there’s also the chance to tell jokes to large groups of people in a formal suited & booted environment…

Me – “What corporate events have you been provided for?”

My search-engine shenanigans came up with a web-page offering, amongst others, Ross’ company-dinner services.

Ross – “Really? Who says that?”

Me – “The people who provide corporate event comedy. There was a picture of you on there, so I know it’s true, they weren’t just throwing your name in for fun.”

This he concedes.

Ross – “Yeah, I have done a few corporate events. I did one once for this computer thing – it was me, Terry Alderton and Steve Coogan – and they came in and said: ‘Do you wanna wear these Dreamcast t-shirts?’ And we said: ‘We’re not wearing them, they’re shit.’ And Terry Alderton went: ‘Would you give us a free Dreamcast?’ This woman disappeared, came back and said: ‘Oh, all right then’. So we all put the t-shirts on. Well, Terry and I did. And then Steve said: ‘I think that’s the sort of t-shirt that Paul Calf would wear.’ So he put it on, and put a tie on the top. And it just looked totally wrong. And he just went: ‘That looks alright, doesn’t it?’ And we were like: ‘Yup, lovely.’”

The horror somewhat eased by the thought of booty.

Now had Ross formed a band at fifteen instead of joining the circus, he could have had a rider chock-full of comparative goodies every night.

Ross – “The rider I had tonight was two bottles of Evian.”

But there are perks to the job. For example…

Me – “You’ve met Jon Bon Jovi’s daughter’s music teacher…”

Ross – “That’s right, yeah.”

Now that’s a meeting I’ve been wondering about.

Me – “Did that go ‘Hi, comedian’ – ‘Jon Bon Jovi’s daughter’s music teacher’?”

Ross – “No.”

And there’s me thinking she had little business cards…

Ross – “I’ve got a kind of Jon Bon Jovi obsession, he pops up in the set on a regular basis. And this woman was pissing herself laughing just at the mention of Bon Jovi. So I went: ‘Hmm, you’re enjoying the Bon Jovi jokes a bit much’. And she told me she taught Stephanie Bon Jovi.”

Me – “That name’s not rock enough.”

Ross – “I know. She should be called Roxy or something.”

Better that than Siobahn. (With a brother called Don. Or Ron. Eeek.)

Anyway. Moving on. Again. To my last questionings. And to Ross’ last Edinburgh show. ‘Chickenmaster’. Which I didn’t see. And am thus slightly bemused by (the titling of).

Me – “Mastering chickens - not impressive. ‘Gorgon Tamer!’: impressive.”

Ross – “That was why.”

Me – “But chickens? They’re tiny! All you’ve got to do is kick ‘em.”

I think he took that on board in the act as well. Whatever, poultry certainly figured large in the stage-set. Literally.

Ross – “The set was built by this guy who designed the set for ‘Judge Dredd’, it cost me three thousand quid.”

Me – “And where have you put it now?”

(In that you would never just chuck it for that amount of money…”

Ross – “It’s in my back garden, rotting, at the moment. And the chickens are in my spare room.”

Me – “Which must be very worrying.”

Agreed.

Ross – “My previous show was called ‘Lazer Boy’, so ‘Chicken Master’ was kind of a continuation of that. I like the idea of having a show which people have got to try and figure out.”

And the title will never help them.

He’s currently batting about ideas for this year’s naming – filching an album title presently a popular plan of moderate cunning – but is certain that animals will not be a feature. Despite my otter urgings. Besides which…

Ross – “I’m trying to vary my animals – I’m trying to stop going on so much about monkeys as well.”

But is content to continue whale-twanging mind-wanderings. (Premise: catapult a blue whale over a car-park, place bets on where it lands.) And beyond the animal cruelty aspect to this proposed ‘sport’ (there’d be more of an argument for penguin propulsion), there’s also the danger element.

Me – “You don’t get car insurance covering whale damage. You’d be better of with a big patch of ground.”

Ross – “But a car park’s funnier than a waste-ground. And a waste-ground is funnier than a field.”

Context is all.

I never thought to consider the comedy hierarchy of different patches of ground. But now I have…

Me – “You know when you get a piece of land that’s been eaten away by the sea until it’s just a separate column – you should get the whale on the coast and see if you can aim it onto the big land-mass.”

Ross – “The trouble with that is, you’re too near the sea.”

Me – “But then that gives it a fighting chance.”

Ross – “It’s funnier if it’s in a car park.”

I’ll concede that to him. Of the two of us, he alone gets paid for that kind of knowledge. If you can gauge the humorous properties of varying pieces of earth – with the naked eye no less – and then have the comedic acumen to add a large adult blue whale (in a catapult) to the equation, stand-up is the best place for you. Which is something The Only Ross Noble To Own A Signed Rolf Harris Stylophone (Complete With Rolf-eroo) is perfectly well aware of. As we all should be…

The title graphic, if you hadn’t noticed, was wantonly stolen from Ross’ home-page.

Last revised: 26/07/01