Ross Noble

Ross Noble
Ross Noble performing his show Noodlemeister at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Birth name	Ross Markham Noble
Born	(1976-06-05) 5 June 1976 (age 48) Cramlington, Northumberland, England
Medium	Stand-up
Nationality	/ English/Australian
Genres	Improvisation/Surrealism
Spouse	Fran Noble
Notable works and roles	Unrealtime Sonic Waffle Randomist Fizzy Logic
Website	Offical Webstie

Ross Markham Noble,^[1] born 5 June 1976, an English stand-up comedian, raised in Cramlington, Northumberland. He currently lives in Melbourne, Australia with his wife, Fran.

Noble rose to mainstream popularity through making appearances on British and Australian television, particularly interviews and on celebrity quiz shows such as Have I Got News For You.^[2] He has also released DVDs of several of his tours.

In a poll for Channel 4, Noble was voted the 10th on a list of the 100 Greatest Stand Ups.^[3]

Noble's stand-up routine is a largely improvised and surreal performance with a stream of consciousness delivery. Often, a large percentage of his set becomes based around heckles and conversations with members of the audience.^{[2] [4]} Although he does often have a few set topics which he performs throughout a tour, he describes the planning for the entire show as, "about four words on a piece of scrap paper".^[5]

Noble often mimes actions on-stage to help the audience visualise his surreal ideas, for example, showing the audience how to serve ice cream properly after considering his own made-up plot of 24 in which Jack Bauer escapes a cell using a greasy goose.^[6]

Noble has commented on how his shows are similar to 24. The fact that he juggles many topics and unfinished stories throughout the show, due to his random performance style, interruptions from hecklers or because he has drifted off into another surreal conversation. Thus the audience pesters Noble to tell the ending of his unfinished stories, which are usually eventually concluded at the end of his shows. His most famous example is in his Randomist tour, where he started to tell a story about him being interviewed after Live 8 near the beginning of a show in Newcastle, which he did not finish until the end of the performance, around two hours later.^[7] This relates to an earlier comment he made in his Regent's Park show, saying that his mind, "Tends to wander off [the point] slightly," and later added that, "[he] can open up too many tangents at once… it's a never-ending expanding spiral of possibilities." At which point, he forgot what he was talking about.^[8]

Noble is originally from Cramlington, a new town, "the ultimate in dullness" helped him with his career, he said. "There was nothing to do so I used my imagination a lot, otherwise I would have started climbing the wall."^[9] At the age of 11, it was discovered that he suffered from dyslexia. Because of this, Noble decided to work within a career which did not rely on academic skills. He had a brief stint as a street juggler with a friend, and aspired to join a circus. He joined a clown troupe and sold balloons as a stiltwalker, before deciding to become a comedian after winning tickets to a comedy show.^[10]

Noble has been performing stand-up since this decision, and appeared in his local comedy club at the age of 15, despite licensing laws that prohibited him working there and forced him to leave through the kitchen.^[4] Noble studied performing arts at Newcastle college, after he told his careers adviser at school he wanted to be a comedian. He later stated that this had no effect on his stand-up ability, as he believes that the information taught is not important in being a good performer.^[11]

Since starting as a stand-up comedian, Noble has won many awards, including a Time Out award winner in 2000 for his Edinburgh show Chickenmaster, and a Perrier Award nomination in 1999 for another Edinburgh Festival show Laser Boy. He has since achieved great popularity in both the UK and Australia, where he has toured extensively every year since 2001. Noble's 2003 show Unrealtime was the best-selling show at the Edinburgh Fringe^[12], before transferring to London's West End for a month long season at the Garrick Theatre where it played to packed houses. A recording of this tour was shown on BBC Two in 2004, and a double DVD set was released later that year.

During 2004, Noble performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and other venues with his show Noodlemeister. His 2005 UK tour, Randomist, ran from September to December, which he continued the tour in Australia during 2006. In April 2006, Noble was involved in a motorbike accident, and both fractured and dislocated his collarbone. Conveniently he crashed right outside a hospital. Ross performed his shows over the following weeks with his arm in a sling.^[13]

Whilst performing at Edinburgh in September 2006 for his Fizzy Logic tour, a fight broke out during the gig, caused by a drunk member of the audience arguing with another. ^[14] At another gig, he found someone filming the show on their mobile phone and confiscated the phone. He then recorded a video on it himself.^[15] After finding that several people recorded his finale skit, "The falling owl stunt", Noble encouraged the entire audience to record the stunt simultaneously and post them on YouTube, in an attempt to achieve, "The largest number of videos showing exactly the same thing."^[16] He then took his tour to Australia in February 2007, during which he filmed a documentary about his travels around the country. He has recently announced dates for his 2007 Nobleism tour in the UK.^[17]

Noble has not done any acting work on TV or radio, as he prefers stand-up for giving him the freedom to say what he wants without being influenced by a crew.^[5] Nevertheless, he has made many TV appearances, which mainly take the form of interviews and panel game participation. In the UK, he has appeared on BBC's Johnny Vaughan Tonight and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Noble has also made seven appearances on BBC 1's Have I Got News for You including the first show guest presented by Paul Merton. His most recent appearance on the show saw him and Paul Merton answer all their questions wrong, and getting no points in the entire show.^[18] He makes regular contributions to BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute and has also appeared on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and presented 4 At The Store.

In Australia, he has guested on such TV and radio shows as Network Ten's Rove (Live), The Panel, and the ABC's The Glasshouse, Spicks and Specks, Triple M radio show Get This, and can be heard regularly on Triple J. In Ireland, he appeared on the first series of Tubridy Tonight, where he went over to a prop bookcase to inspect if the books were real. Upon reading one book, he found a photo of Mike Yarwood on one page, which he cut out and wore as a mask for a portion of the interview.^[19]

Besides making various guest appearances, Ross has been the host of an Australian radio show, and the subject of two BBC radio series. Noble's worldwide travels as a stand-up were the subject of his own BBC Radio 4 series Ross Noble Goes Global, produced by Danny Wallace. This series, recorded between April and May 2001, saw him recording his observations as he travelled around various countries. In January 2005, Noble joined Australian comedian Terri Psiakis in co-hosting Ross and Terri, the weekday lunch shift on national radio station Triple J. Following on from Ross Noble Goes Global, Radio 4 broadcasted a new series called Ross Noble On… during January to February 2007. The 4-episode series followed his 2006 UK tour, featuring performances in Brighton, York, Manchester and Newcastle.^[20]

Noble once again teamed up with Terri Psiakis on Triple J for two weeks of Ross and Terri in January 2006. This second period on Triple J also saw Ross and Terri founding "Pants Across Australia", during which, 4 pairs of trousers were sent to the north, south, east and west extremities of Australia and then back to Melbourne.^[21] Unfortunately, Ross and Terri did not return to this slot in 2007, however Terri Psiakis and Amy Blackmur (the pair's producer from their 2006 show) did present a limited run of shows during a similar time frame earlier in the year, under the working title "T 'n' A" ("Terri and Amy"). As well as this, Terri and Amy decided to continue in the evening slot of 6pm - 10pm.^[21]

These dates apply to Noble's UK tours^[4]

• Laser Boy – 1999
• Chickenmaster – 2000
• Slackers Playtime – 2001
• Sonic Waffle – 2002
• Unrealtime – 2003
• Noodlemeister – 2004
• Randomist – 2005
• Fizzy Logic – 2006
• Nobleism – 2007

Several recorded performances of Ross Noble are available on DVD, notable for the large amount of extras that appear on them. With Noble's recorded shows, they are mostly dominated by Noble with just a few moments of audience participation. Although throughout the rest of his tour, Noble is more relaxed with the audience joining in, even though sometimes the audience can dominate a show, as seen on the extra "Live in Birmingham" gig on the Randomist DVD.

• Released October 2004

A Double DVD set which includes a performance of Noble's Unrealtime show at the Garrick Theatre, as well as a performance at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Also Ross on tour backstage footage and a quiz to unlock extra footage. Also contains 'Trivia Track' which contains Ross Noble's facts relating to the show, for example "Over 100 copies of Harry Potter have been sold, and that's only in Wales" and "To invent your own religon you need robes and mental people" and "You can never hit a tiny drum, as it cannot defend its self". "Fuck off Tramp was the B-Side to Shane Richie's I'm your Man" and "A monkeys eye is the same size as a vole's arse" "90% of all taxis are made in Hull."^[22]

• Released October 2005

The single DVD contains the uncut last night performance from London's Vaudeville Theatre, complete with commentary and, "commentary on the commentary," audio tracks. It also includes his 'meat on the face' performance from the BBC television series Jack Dee Live at the Apollo, which has an audio commentary opinion where Noble is joined by a Cantonese Interpreter. The DVD also offers the viewer to play a game of celebrity muffins.^[22]

• Released November 2006

A 4-disc set which contains unedited performances from the City Hall in Newcastle, the Victoria Hall in Stoke, the Alexandra in Birmingham and the Town Hall in Melbourne, Australia. The extras include the documentaries Ross' Highland Fling and Ross' Australia Tour, and an interactive quiz. The fourth disc contains The Randomiser, and an hours worth of randomised live performance clips from York, Manchester, Liverpool. Commentary is included for three of the shows.^[22]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Ross Noble Goes Global.

• Ross Noble official website
• Ross Noble Goes Global on bbc.co.uk