Geordie boy – and
four-time Chortle Award winner – Ross Noble talks on a very quiet phone line
about Lilt, his Heat magazine future, and the best way to put Adam Hills off
his game…
Ross Noble is a very funny man. A comedian since the age of
fifteen – and prior to that, a stint with the circus – he has won awards and
acclaim in equal measure. He’s played shows in this country, Australia, Poland,
China, South Africa, and even one for the Bedouin of Egypt. If you haven’t seen
him live, you might have caught him on Radio 4’s ‘Ross Noble 
Goes
Global’, ‘Just A Minute’ or ‘Have I Got News For You’. With ‘Sonic Waffle’ at
last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, he sold out every night he played. A gifted
performer, he weaves much of his shows around things that minute seen and
heard, riffing off his audience on wildly improvisational flights of fancy. The
last show I saw him do involved hover-donkeys, the Ker-Plunk potential in
multiple barge pile-ups, and the secret soft-scoop plans of naughty cherubs. Ever
personable onstage, he makes stand-up look effortless and easy. And he’s still
only in his twenties. This August he is taking a new show ‘unrealtime’ to the
Edinburgh Festival, and will follow it up with another West End theatre run in
the Autumn.
But before all that, the self-confessed
“free-form jazz-monkey of comedy” will be playing the Open Air Theatre in
Regent’s Park. I thought it only right to find out why. “Cos it’s there.” Ross
denies a long-held dream to play in the great outdoors, at a theatre where the
wet-weather policy extends to reminding patrons to bring a coat. So does Ross
have any rain-contingency plans? “I think there might be a canopy over the
stage.” So he’ll be fine. “I might deliberately mock the audience though.”
Soggy rudeness notwithstanding, Ross promises the show will be something
special. “I have thought about riding in on a helicopter.” It wouldn’t be the
silliest thing he’s done onstage. Recently, he’s caused a slight ruckus in the
pineapple drinks world, by giving out the Lilt hotline number to a couple of
hundred people during a show. “We all just rang it up, and asked ridiculous
questions, like if it was possible for a tropical fish to survive in a big bowl
of Lilt.” There were thousands of calls. “They passed the numbers onto the
police.” Ross seems quite pleased at the thought. Though this incident is not
his favourite exercise of onstage power. “I think the best one was probably
someone who got up to leave about twenty minutes before the end of the show,
saying ‘I have to get my bus – it’s the last bus.’ So I just got a whip round,
for a taxi… And someone else went: ‘well I live near there’. We got four people
in a cab. I should make that a regular thing. A big collection bucket on the
door. Raffle tickets...” Ross’ philanthropy is not solely 
restricted to audience transport issues,
however. When I ask what became of his 2001 set, a massive rock-climbing wall
with an array of strange objects embedded within it, his response is immediate.
“I took it to a local leisure centre, for under-privileged kids.” Is that safe?
“No. That’s why it’s fun.” Before I can harrumph my disapproval, he admits he’s
joking. But that the set for this year’s Edinburgh pales in comparison to all
that have gone before. “I can reveal that the set for this year’s show is
looking like it’s going to be about £15,000. That gives you some idea of the
sheer majesty. It’s going to have quite an astral feel.” He seems very excited
at the thought. “This time I’m just gonna throw money at it. If the show makes money
you should put as much money back in there as you can.” And it is mostly all
going on set, rather than outfits. Nothing spangly will be seen on this man. “I
had some shirts made for the show, but…” He’s lost too much weight since for
them to fit properly, and doesn’t believe it is entirely worth porking back up
in order to get his money’s worth out of them. He can afford not to. Actually,
he can more than afford not to. After a decade in the business, Ross has become
one of the most bankable starrs of the Fringe. This year he is moving from the
Pleasance to the Assembly Rooms, playing in one of the biggest rooms the
theatre has. But this is less of a case of ‘switching allegiances’ as going
where the space is. “You find somewhere that’s suitable. I’d rather people
queue around the block and have it full every night than not.” As he managed in
2002. “We sold every single seat. There wasn’t a seat in the whole run, and
with extra shows as well.” So he’s moving to the massive auditorium at the
Assembly Rooms. “It’s smaller than the room I did in Melbourne.” But still. “I
hope people don’t think I’m going all la-di-da…” This seems doubtful. This is,
after all, a man still known for his mooning. Many many people – both audience
members and innocent bystanders alike – have, over the years, been witness to
the sight of his naked buttocks. Though it’s by no means the most outrageous
thing he’s done onstage. “I also stripped naked once and pretended to have sex
with the head of a Roman in order to put off Adam Hills. It was in South
Africa. Every night I used to wander into the wings: the first night I stood
there waving. Then I got my plums out.” Though to just be waving them around
wasn’t enough for Ross. He had to make use of a nearby prop. “Just scratching
them with a really gnarly sweeping brush. Then the next night I got my arse
out. And then… sex with a papier-mâché Roman’s head.” I mention it being a good
thing Adam didn’t play out there 
for any longer, if Ross felt the need to
better himself every night. Ross agrees. He might have found it necessary to
have had sex with an actual Roman soldier. “That might lead to problems with
the Italian military.”
And changing the subject…
It is established that Ross doesn’t have
super persuasive powers, Sylvester McCoy is happy to chase anyone while
pretending to be Doctor Who and you the alien of your choice. That the Ross
Noble leaving Cabernet Sauvignon reviews (“Pervasive aromas of blackcurrant, plum,
spice and cedary oak…”) on the Miranda Wines website
is not his good self
double-jobbing while in Australia and breaking his teetotalism, but one of
many name-alikes out there. “There’s
another bloke as well who writes religious books.” It is also established that
Ross was indeed served an “upright battered pigeon” in China through a menu
misunderstanding. Curious, I ask if he ate any of it. “I nibbled at the
batter.” But didn’t progress onto anything more meaty. “It was horrible.” There
are other, less food-related boons to travelling the world however. Such as the
shopping potential. Ross – a man who owns a night-vision rifle scope[1]
and “did for a while have a corridor that was full of ‘Mork and Mindy’” – came
back from his recent Australia dates with some good toys. “I bought an ‘Alien’
thing, the loader from the end of the film.” As well as another item for his
ever-expanding ‘Star Wars’ collection. “I also bought a trampoline. But I left
it in the hotel.” Last year, going one better, he came back from Australia with
a theme song. Which was indeed composed by Damian Coldwell, one of Otis Lee
Crenshaw’s Black Liars. “I was in Adelaide, sitting outside. The accommodation
had a veranda thing out the back, he was staying under it. We just started
talking…” From that moment, a musical hymn to Ross’ wandering mind was born, a
song which he tends to use as home-time set-end music. A song which, despite my
brain’s insistence, does not rhyme “fighting for our rights” with “in his satin
tights”. (What I’ve done there is confuse Ross Noble with Wonder Woman. The
hair is probably where the similarities end[2].)
There is definitely a rhyme of “chaos at the dairy” and “how to steal a
prairie” however. The tune can currently be heard on his website,
though there is a possibility of a wider audience being found. “I’m thinking of
maybe shooting a video for that as well.” For MTV or his own amusement?
“Funnily enough one of the top DJs is playin’ around with doing a record.
That’ll probably be released on a white label.” Ooh, but Ross has big plans for
the entertainment section of your local retail store. “What I’d like is a
mixture of an actual recorded show, and then on the other side music. It’s a
comedy album with a dance flavour.” He wouldn’t be the first. I tell 
him about the ‘Midfielding’ collaboration
[Skint Records], where the Midfield General took Noel Fielding’s lengthy ramble
about going over to Africa in a big wooden shrew – covered in KitKat wrappers
to make it double-dangerous – and gave it a big-beat backing. Ross, curious and
a little competitive, asks for more information. “Did he have a yak on there?”
No. “Well then…” Yaks notwithstanding, there are plans for other releases this
year. In 2001, Ross unleashed an
‘Official Bootleg’ CD on the world, recorded live at a show in Brighton. This
year, he plans to release a second. And also a DVD. Or two. “”It’ll be from the
West End show. I think there’ll probably be a few extras. I’ll do a
commentary.” The disc will definitely feature the Kung Fu Fridge Boy and Monkey
Slayer short film which has started his shows for the last year, but it won’t
be jam-packed with extras. And he won’t release a double-disc set with free
bookends several months later, a la Lord Of The Rings. He’ll just put out a second
DVD. “I might release the second one commercially, but the first on the
internet.” But aside from that, his future is mostly concerned with gigging.
Constantly. Towards the end of his live shows, Ross tends to ask the audience
if they have “any questions?” Last Friday, when I saw him in Hebden Bridge, one
of the queries was a plaintive: “Will you come back here?” He promised he
would. (“Yes. I will. I might wait a bit. Mebbes October. What day’s good with
you?” “The seventh.” “Right.”) That he is sticking to, though probably not on
the date his audience suggested. “I’m going to do London. So it [Hebden Bridge]
will have to wait.” Even if he can’t accede to their wishes exactly, Ross is
still happy to know what his audience is thinking. He loves the “any
questions?” section. As do I. The fact that people use them to tie up his loose
conversational ends, and have clearly been paying enough attention to know he
has left three different anecdotes unfinished. “That’s what’s nice about it,
people might have thought ‘I wish he’d talk to me’.” I’m also very taken with
the fact that, given the chance to ask him anything they want to, people give a
lovely insight into the workings of their brain. I’ve seen one man choose to
clear up the Noble cab-thievery incident he suffered in 2001, and one woman
with highly detailed questions about the style of shoes he has worn onstage for
the last four years. “The weirdest one was in Sheffield. ‘What was the hairiest
dog you’ve ever seen?’”[3]
Ross does enjoy opening the floor up. “That way you kind of find out what
people really want to know.” Be it a thread of an earlier conversation, or a
genuine preoccupation. A flatmate, of all the things she could ask him, only
wanted to know whether he considered flying psychic toast to be the future?
“Yeah. Better than the just regular flying toast.” He pauses, gives the matter
more thought. “Mebbes there already is. But they’re hiding.” So does giving
people the chance to ask questions in this way minimise random approaches in
the street? Possibly. But that was never his intention. “I think I’m quite
approachable anyway. It’s not a cynical way of avoiding anyone ever talking to
me. It’s just worr I do.” No danger of “la-di-da” here either. Even the success
of his second ‘Ross Noble Goes 
Global’ radio series hasn’t left him overly boastful, perhaps
because he doesn’t yet know if there will be a third. “The final one goes out
on Thursday, and they haven’t given a thumbs up yet.” A change of policy at the
BBC has meant shows are only re-commissioned after the series has ended, and
the feedback has been good. So we ought to all ring up the Duty Log. “Yeah. A
load of people call up.” But it has generally been fantastically well-received.
It’s been Pick Of The Week in every TV guide I’ve seen (and we generally have
anything between three and seven in the house), and Ross is feeling quite
chuffed with it all. “Heat magazine loved it, and that’s enough.” Not that his
being splashed across their radio pages guarantees he will be moving into the
‘spotted’ section of the magazine. Four page photo spreads of Ross walking past
some bins seems unlikely. “More likely rooting through them.” For the moment,
his future is on the stage, and he’s far more excited about ‘unrealtime’ than
anything else. “This show is just gonna wipe the floor with everything I’ve
done.” This summer is our chance to find out why.
Ross Noble
plays the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre on Sunday July the 6th.
Tickets are £16.
This interview is an extended version of
the one conducted for www.break-a-leg.biz
Photos taken by Chris Saunders.
Last revised: 15/06/03