By anyone’s standards, comedian Ross Noble has had a momentous year. In the
past 12 months he has become a father for the first time, had a critically
acclaimed stadium tour of his adopted homeland, Australia, and lost his
house and every single possession he and his family owned during the recent
Melbourne bush fires. How the hell do you recover from that?
“I’m a bit displaced at the moment,” he says phlegmatically. “We’ll find
somewhere to buy, but you have to rebuild one knick-knack at a time. We were
aware it could happen ... we knew it was a possibility, but fear’s a
relative thing. You can’t spend your whole life worrying about what’s going
to happen or you’d never do anything.”
Facing down fear is a subject that Noble, now 33, returns to several times.
He’s not gung-ho exactly, but in the best traditions of British pluckiness,
he’s willing to give things a go. If ever he was fazed by striding out on to
a stage with nothing more than a few ideas and some apparently half-formed
stories, he is no longer. In fact, he seems almost underwhelmed by the
bowel-weakening challenges of the six-week West End run of Things, his
latest one-man show.
“It’s not nerve-racking at all,” he says. “It’s like driving — when you first
get in a car and you pull out into traffic, you’re just thinking about not
hitting the kerb. But then you get comfortable and you’re enjoying the
exhilaration of it and at no point are you thinking ‘What if I’m thrown off
the road and hideously mangled in the wreckage?’ It’s all I’ve ever done
since I was a kid.”
Noble started his comedy career in Newcastle clubs at the precocious age of 15
— he gives me a sample of his early material, which involved penalty notices
in The Highway Code. “It used to say: ‘Driving while disqualified — six
months in prison (or 12 months in Scotland).’ I’d say that’s not really a
punishment, a nice year in the Highlands.” To be honest, it’s not that
funny, and seems worlds away from the combination of tortuously strung out
anecdotes, banter with the audience and surreal ad-libbing that form his
shows nowadays. He has been described as “the supreme master of spontaneous
stand-up” and is arguably the finest live performer of his generation —
captivating, imaginative and hilarious.
Nevertheless, despite the success, there remains an element of chippiness. “I
like going somewhere smart and standing out a bit,” he says at one point. We
are in a fairly swishy London hotel and Noble is dressed in baggy khaki
shorts and a grey, shapeless T-shirt: backpacker chic. His wardrobe doesn’t
help him to blend in, but then he would cut an extraordinary figure anyway.
It’s hard to better his own description that he “looks like every single
character in Lord of the Rings” — certainly there’s something a little
Dungeons & Dragons about him — the huge, diabolic eyebrows, the big
round eyes and the hair. My God, the hair. He has been growing it for years,
but it has become increasingly Messiah-like and now all but deserves its own
billing as Noble strokes, scrapes, twists and flicks it around. “It’s slowly
dreaded up over time,” he says, pulling at one strand fondly.
Of course, he gets away with it because he is famous. He has a TV series about
to air — Ross Noble’s Australian Trip, his road trip across the Outback,
spliced together with footage from the shows he played there — but has only
occasionally appeared on television in the past years, limiting himself to
seven spots on Have I Got News For You, “the daddy of them all”. Generally,
he has resisted becoming a fixture on the easy-quip TV circuit and made a
virtue of not chasing an acting career, but I can’t help wondering if his
dyslexia has held him back in this respect — learning a script would be
problematic and his improvised stand-up seemed to be one of the few careers
open to him.
“When I do try and make any sort of notes, the one thing that people point out
is that it’s never in list form, it’s always . . .” he stabs his finger
about in the air. “I don’t know what it’s like not to be dyslexic. Maybe if
I could write things down, I would have been a one-liner merchant.” He
laughs at the absurdity of the idea.
Name three jobs you could have done
Stuntman I was rubbish at school because I was dyslexic so I needed to
find a job that didn’t rely on writing. I thought about being a stuntman for
a while because that’s just jumping off things and setting fire to yourself,
but you have to have a GCSE in physical education so I couldn’t do it.
Warzone cameraman Then I thought I could be a warzone cameraman but,
apparently, you needed science for that so that was out of the window.
Puppeteer I wanted to have a job that was fun; the probability was that
I would end up being a brickie or working in a factory.
Three things about your home town of Cramlington in Northumberland
Cycle tracks They’re excellent.
Zeppelins It was a centre of zeppelin operations during the First World
War.
No cinema The only downside is it hasn’t got a cinema. The nearest one
is in Jesmond so I was always quite annoyed about that as a kid.
Favourite heckle
North-South divide I was talking about the North-South divide and I
said to this bloke in the audience at Letchworth: “Is there a North-South
divide?” and he said (puts on lairy Cockney accent), “No, mate, no, there’s
definitely not a North-South divide.” And I went: “Why’s that then?” And he
said: “Cos you wouldn’t have got through you Geordie c***.” He practically
got a standing ovation.
Favourite animal
Owl or monkey It’s so difficult to choose between the owl and monkey. I
reckon the ultimate would be an owl with a monkey head. Or a winged monkey.
Favourite hobby
Motorbikes It’s the closest thing to flying while you’re on the ground.
I love the fact that it’s all pedals and levers and buttons and is
essentially a big lump of metal, and if you push those levers and buttons in
the right way it’ll do incredible things. There's that freedom that it can
take you anywhere you want and the pure rush of it, the excitement and
adrenalin of the speed.
Best place visited on your Australian Trip
Rockhampton This is the beef capital of Australia and they have big
statues of bulls on plinths, almost like war memorials. People get drunk and
steal the b******s off the concrete statues. You only know things like that
if you go to these places.
Ross Noble: Things, Apollo Theatre, London W1 (www.nimax theatres.com 0844
4124658), from Sept 14; Ross Noble’s Australian Trip will appear on Five
later this month
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