Because we're both 23 (©, TM, pats.app.), the ComedyLounge interview with Ross Noble takes place at 2.30pm. And because we're both 23, this means we've both just woken up. Ross is on the phone from Newcastle, home for a short break following a hectic summer which saw him storming the Edinburgh Festival, where he earned a well deserved Perrier Nomination, and taking his Lazer Boy show to the Sydney Comedy Festival.
Ross Noble's show is literally a once in a lifetime experience. Much has been made of his ability to improvise material from the small details volunteered by audience members. This is not Whose Line Is It Anyway? territory, but rambling conversation that can take the show in any direction. The ability to establish a rapport with an audience is a precious attribute for any comedian, and Ross' gift in this respect is priceless. The Independent on Sunday has been heard to gasp "He improvised with awe-inspiring fluency and imagination - and this was genuine improvisation, not the do-your-usual-stuff-in-a-different-order variety favoured by other comics." The Times exclaimed "Ross Noble takes the barest biographical information from the audience and weaves from it modern-day fairytales." Ross plays this aspect of his act down somewhat. "My motto", he laughs, "is just sort of keep talking! To be honest I make up so much of the act because I sort of find it hard, if you've got something you do that you have to say over a hundred times. If you just talk it's just like a conversation so it's more fun." Ross estimates that, at any given show, at least fifty percent of the show is improvised material. "It depends on what sort of gig you have. A show I did the other night, there was about four minutes of material. In Edinburgh it was about 50/50. I was doing about 20 minutes and then I was doing straight material. It depends on what comes up."
This kind of approach can have its draw backs, when some members of the audience aren't willing to connect with the performance in quite this manner, as Ross has found out to his cost. "There was this time in Southampton when everyone was really enjoying the gig, except this couple who were sat there stony faced and they kept turning round and talking. I kept engaging them saying 'What are you talking about?' and they were ignoring me, so I just eluded to the fact that she was a lot younger than him and said 'Is that your dad?' Everyone went 'Oooh! That was a bit close to the bone!' but I thought nothing more of it and carried on. Then after the gig I was in the backstage area, behind the curtains at the back, and I turned round and this fist connected with my face, with this big diamond ring, and this woman had come back stage and just started punching me! And I thought, I'll not do that again. That was very unpleasant."
Ross' unique brand of comedy makes him the perfect compere for the bear pit that is Edinburgh's infamous Late 'N' Live. This late night comedy show plays every night of the festival to an audience of drunken, belligerent revellers, usually a bit worse for wear and baying for blood. Late 'N' Live is infamous for it's hostility, but for Ross it holds a different appeal. "I don't know, there's some sort of weird, inner, twisted. it's just sort of perverse, a sort of perverse pleasure in it. I find it quite terrifying, and quite challenging."
The nature of the gig means that anything can happen, and it usually does. When I caught Late 'N' Live in 1999, in between the three acts (two of which died a horribly ugly and painful death on stage), Ross endeavoured to break the world record for the number of bare arses on show in one room at any one time. He tired, successfully, to elicit the audience's enthusiasm to participate by going first. As a member of the front row, this is a sight that has stayed with me long since. Ross is justifiably proud of some of the stunts he pulled off during this year's run of Late N Live.
"It can be horrible, but when something good happens, when you get them to do something good, it can be such a beautiful moment, like this year with the line of criminals on stage!" he laughs. "What happened was, we had the criminals all up on stage, all these men who had done different things, and we had lined them up in order of seriousness, and then we got this policemen up from the audience, and we sent him backstage, and rearranged the criminals. And he came back out, walked up to the line and guessed it exactly, with no hesitation, without thinking about it, and the crowd went wild, cheering, 'YES! The copper guessed it!', even though at the start of the night they'd all booed when they found out he was a copper, he became their hero in about 90 seconds."
Although still only 23, Ross' career nearly years ago, when as a tiny child, Ross decided that the best way to achieve his ambition to travel the world would be to "get an act together" and join the circus. "When I was 13 or 14, I used to do a show with my mate. We used to go around all these fair grounds every weekend when we weren't in school, and this mad bloke with all these helium balloons - he was like a clown - he let us do our own show at these fairs while he used to set up if we'd sell his balloons." At the beginning, Ross never considered this as a long-term career move. "When you're 15 you just sort of decide to do something - You just sort of decide that that would be a laugh. It's only later on that you think 'Oh that might not work.'" Ross moved to the bright lights of London to seek his fortune at the tender age of 17. "When I turned round to my parents and said 'I'm off to London Town where the streets are paved with gold!' they just went 'Okay.'"
To date, Ross has already achieved his ambition of travelling the world, having performed in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Montreal, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai, Prague, Dublin, and Brisbane. At this year's Edinburgh Festival, he won the Herald Angel award for outstanding performance, and was also nominated for the Perrier Award.
1999 was a huge year for Ross. I ask him what his proudest achievement was. "I've had some cracking reviews, five stars and that kind of thing but.There was one show I did, and there was a young boy sitting in the front row, about 9 or 10. I said to him at the beginning that I wanted him to enjoy the show just as much as everyone else, so if I said anything, or if there was anything that he didn't understand, he was to put up his hand and ask, and I'd explain it for him. And I said that later on in the show I'd be talking about the Power Rangers, and doing a yo-yo demonstration. And he was really laughing, which was great, this 9-year-old pissing himself laughing with everyone else. So about 45 minutes into it, he put up his hand. He was waving his hand and going 'Ross! Ross!', and I said 'Yeah?' And he said 'when are you going to do the yo-yo demonstration?' And everyone fell about laughing. And I said, 'oh, I don't have a yo-yo'. And he said 'Neither do I.' I said he should ask for one for his birthday, and he said that he wanted a fish for his birthday. At the end of the gig, I went into the dressing room, and sent my manager round with £10 for him, to put towards his fish, to buy something like a castle for the tank, or something, and I didn't think anything more about it. Then about two or three months ago, I got two photos over the email. One was a picture of him practising with his new yo-yo, and another picture of his two fish. One of which was called 'Ross'."