Росс Ноубл: от стендапа до театральных подмостков.

English comedian

Ross Markham Noble (born 6 June 1976) is an English stand up comedian and actor. Noble rose to mainstream popularity through making appearances on British television, particularly interviews and on panel shows such as Have I Got News for You. He has also released DVDs of several of his tours. In 2007 he was voted the 10th greatest stand up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 11th greatest stand up comic. In 2012, Noble made his film debut in the fantasy comedy horror movie Stitches. In 2015 he made his musical theatre debut in The Producers and in 2018 was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in Young Frankenstein in the West End.

Noble was born in 1976 in Newcastle upon Tyne and brought up in Cramlington, Northumberland. Both of his parents were teachers. He was taught at Cramlington Learning Village between 1987 and 1991.

Noble's stand up routine is a largely improvised and surreal performance with a stream of consciousness delivery. He is often referred to as a randomist. Often, a large percentage of his set becomes based around heckles and conversations with members of the audience. 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". Noble often mimes actions on stage to help the audience visualise his surreal ideas, for example, telling the audience to never put a blanket over an owl, and exactly what an owl neck detection device is ("just a stick with a pointy bit on it") or showing the audience how to serve double header ice creams properly after considering his own made up plot of 24 in which Jack Bauer escapes a cell using a greasy goose. Noble's style is recognised as spontaneous, due to his unpredictable performance style, interruptions from hecklers or because he has drifted off into another surreal tangent. During his shows he is known to dabble onto one topic, ask a member of the audience something about him or herself and use that as material, and carry on with that, and later on seems to forget about the routine, digressing into another topic. 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. 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."

Noble is originally from Cramlington, Northumberland, England. "The ultimate place to live" helped him with his career—he found little to do in his hometown so he became particularly imaginative. At the age of 11, it was discovered that he was dyslexic. 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 stilt walker, before deciding to become a comedian after winning tickets to a comedy show. As a teenager, Ross was a member of the youth theatre at the People's Theatre in Heaton, Newcastle. In 1997, he was doing warm ups at the BBC for Friday Night Armistice. Noble has been performing stand up since the dyslexia diagnosis, 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.

Since starting as a stand up comedian, Noble has won many awards, including a Time Out award winner in 2000 for his Edinburgh Fringe Festival show Chickenmaster, and a Perrier Award nomination in 1999 for another Edinburgh 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, before transferring to London's West End for a monthlong 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, of which he continued 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. Noble performed his shows over the following weeks with his arm in a sling. During his 'Things' tour, in Bristol on 1 March 2009, he claimed that before the ambulance officers would help him, he was forced to do his Stephen Hawking impression. While performing in Edinburgh in September 2006 for his Fizzy Logic tour, a fight broke out during the gig, caused by a drunken member of the audience arguing with another. Also, in his Edinburgh gig, some one gave him a basket of mini muffins with faces printed on them; this is related to a sketch from Noble's DVD Sonic Waffle, in which he mentions his hobby of finding faces in muffins. 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. 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." He then took his tour to Australia in February 2007, during which he filmed a documentary about his travels around the country. In 2007 Noble finished his Nobleism tour in the UK with a show in Liverpool on 21 October 2007 which was screened live to 43 Vue cinemas. If the event had sold out, he would have played to over 10,000 people. Upon walking offstage, Noble enquired if the broadcast had succeeded and was informed by a technician that "it worked perfectly but we lost Aberdeen". To this day, Noble maintains that this is the "coolest thing anyone has ever said" to him. Noble likes to have spontaneous material related to each specific show, and therefore encourages heckling and has increasingly indulged in the audience giving him gifts during shows. At a gig at the Edinburgh Playhouse during Noble's 2005 Randomist tour, a member of the audience put his feet up on the stage, and later removed his shoes and put them on the stage instead. It is now traditional for the entire front row of an Edinburgh audience to place their shoes upon the stage during the interval, which causes Noble much amusement when he returns. Noble performed at the 2008 Latitude Festival and rounded off his set by leading everyone in the tent in a huge conga line (which quickly turned into a stampede) to a vegan food stand so they could all ask for pies and sausage rolls. The DVD of his show Nobleism was released in November 2009.

In 2012, Noble made his film debut in the fantasy comedy horror movie Stitches playing the titular character, an undead birthday clown out for revenge.

Noble had not done any acting work on TV until the summer of 2013 when he appeared opposite Ian Smith as a gay lover in the Australian TV series "It's a date", or radio, as he prefers stand up for giving him the freedom to say what he wants without being influenced by a script or crew. Noble has also made 16 appearances, the highest number of appearances of any guest, on BBC One's Have I Got News for You including the first show guest presented by Paul Merton. His most memorable appearance on the show saw him and Paul Merton answer all their questions wrong, and getting no points in the entire show. He was Paul Merton's guest on Room 101, where he wanted to consign to history the likes of Craig David, cartoon animals who wear clothes, people who look like cats, clipboards and Christian rock music. 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 July 2007, Ross featured, as part of his "In The Company Of ", on the Colin Murray show on BBC Radio 1, and in August 2007 Noble appeared on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2. the ABC's The Glasshouse, as well as Triple M radio show Get This, regular appearances 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. Since 2010 he has made eighteen guest appearances on British comedy panel show QI. In July 2011 Ross appeared in the second episode of the 17th series of Top Gear. On the show he revealed that he currently owns earth moving machines as well as an Abbott 433 self propelled gun, which he calls his "Tank". He did a lap around the Top Gear track in 1.43.5, beating Tom Cruise and placing him in second place behind John Bishop. In 2012 he was a regular panelist on That Sunday Night Show on ITV. In April 2012 he featured on Triple J for a day where he co hosted some shows, and played an imaginative game of Cluedo, where they found people from around Melbourne that matched the Cluedo characters names to come into the studio and play. Appears briefly in TT3D: Closer to the Edge in conversation with Richard 'Milky' Quayle.

Besides making various guest appearances, Noble 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 broadcast 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. All of the Radio 4 programmes have since been released as BBC audio CDs. 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. 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. He finished as the runner up of the series, raising over $100,000 for his charity, the Australian Red Cross Disaster Response and Recovery Fund.

Noble made his musical theatre debut as Franz Liebkind in the 2015 UK tour of Mel Brooks' The Producers from May to July 2015. In September 2017 he played Igor in another Mel Brooks musical Young Frankenstein at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End (following a tryout at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle) before leaving in February 2018 due to his Australian stand up tour. Noble received a WhatsOnStage Award for his performance and was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical. During his time in the show, he and co star Hadley Fraser did a recording called "Poddin' On The Ritz" to discuss behind the scenes at the show and musical theatre.

Noble has two daughters, with his Australian wife. He lived on a farm in St Andrews, a semi rural town on the northern outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, until it was destroyed by 2009 Victorian bushfires along with all his material possessions. Noble and his family were not harmed in the fire. The family returned to the UK in 2010. In February 2017 Noble and his family moved back to Australia, purchasing a house in Mount Eliza, Victoria. In September 2019 they sold this property for $2.725 million AUD and moved to the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne. A keen biker and off road rider, Noble is also a fan of MotoGP, WSBK and The Isle of Man TT. He has created an off road track in the paddock at his home and has a number of vehicles to use on it, including an FV433 Abbot SPG self propelled gun. He has competed in many races—notably, The Romaniacs and the 24 hour Dusk to Dawn. He attended several track days in 2011, including Brands Hatch on the GP circuit as a guest of MSV aboard his Triumph Daytona 675R.

Following the 2009 Victoria bushfires, Noble has used the event in his act and donates profits from the sale of the show's programme/poster (or "postergram" as it is called) to a charitable fund to help those similarly affected. Noble supports British charity Riders for Health and donated money earned from limited edition signed posters together with bucket collections after each gig from his Nonsensory Overload tour to Riders for Health. This raised £42,000 for Riders. He has attended their fundraising event Day of Champions on a number of occasions, most recently at Silverstone in 2010. He also voiced the Riders for Health BBC Radio 4 appeal aired just before Christmas 2010. In May 2011, to celebrate his 20th anniversary of stand up, Noble teamed up with Triumph Motorcycles which were also celebrating a milestone, having just produced their 500,000th bike (since the company was relaunched 20 years earlier) and did the "Sit Down" tour. Using only Twitter as a guide, Noble travelled around the UK on the unique Triumph Speed Triple guided by his Twitter followers and accompanied by a film crew. The Triumph Speed Triple was auctioned by Bonhams at the Goodwood festival of speed on 1 July 2011, with all the proceeds (£8,000) going to Noble's charity of choice, Riders for Health. In July 2011, Noble competed in the Red Bull Romaniacs, which is "one of the toughest extreme motorcycle events on the planet". as part of the Desert Rose Racing Team with fellow rider Clive "Zippy" Town (Dakar 2006) with both riders on 350 Exc F KTMs.

Several recorded performances of Noble are available on DVD, notable for the large number of extras that appear on them. Noble's recorded shows are mostly dominated by Noble with just a few moments of audience participation. Throughout the rest of his tour Noble is more relaxed, with the audience joining in. However, the audience can sometimes dominate a show, as seen on the extra "Live in Birmingham" gig on the Randomist DVD. Although on the official website it states that all of Noble's DVDs are region free, with the exception of Unrealtime, his latest two DVDs have only been released in Region 2 format so far.