Ross Noble
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Ross Noble

With over 20 years as a comedian, Ross Noble still manages to defy every journalist and reviewers attempt to define what it is he does on stage. He’s a comedic enigma. Described as everything from a randomist with a “cerebral style” right through to having “inspired lunacy”; attending a Ross Noble show is like stepping foot into the rabbit warren that is Ross’ mind. Give him a line and he’ll have you laughing hysterically until the next unexpected topic comes along. The easiest thing to determine is that Ross thrives in a live scenario.
 
“I prefer when it’s live because it forces you to perform and everything is just a little bit bang, bang, bang, you know?” Ross says of the two recorded radio interviews preceding ours.
 
And that’s how the early days of Ross’ steps into comedy began; on the street, raw, live and at the whim of the public’s reactions.
 
“Before I did stand up, when I was really young I used to do a street show with juggling and all that. And that was all just playing around with people that were passing by,” the 39-year-old comedian says.
 
“So I basically just put everything that I learned from the street into my stand up, and that’s why it’s like the way it is now. And then you just get better at it.”
 
With his iconic style well on its way from the beginning, over time Ross has expanded the length of his show (Ross often does a two and a half hour show with an interval) and has come to realise that the best comedy comes from a place of honesty and self acceptance. 
 
“The trick to being a good stand up is to be yourself,” he says.
 
“I think everyone you see who is a comic, people might get influenced and think; ‘I’d like to try that’ or ‘That excites  me’. There are people who have been influenced by me but I take that as a compliment, but to be really good you want to be yourself.
 
“It takes a long time to work that out because a lot of people are so desperate to be a certain thing; they chase the thing that they want to be and as soon as you let go of that and let it choose you [you’re set].”
 
Now on the other side of accepting his own style (which Ross pegs to the late ‘90s) he can see new comedians coming into the scene going through the same process he did decades ago.
 
“What I love seeing is a newer comic and they haven’t found their voice and they haven’t quite got it but you can see that rawness. You can see a flash of something, a flash of brilliance, but they haven’t quite found their voice,” he says.
 
“I was talking about this last night and the classic example of that was Sacha Baron Cohen. It was one of those things where I saw him on the London circuit when he was a 5-minute trial. So I used to host these shows at the new act night, and he used to come along and it was one of those things where even though half the time the audience didn’t quite get it, it was one of those things where there was a flash of brilliance about this guy. Sure enough within a year or two years he’d created one of the greatest comedy characters of all time.”
 
No doubt, perhaps Billy Connolly or Steve Martin are looking back at the time they first saw Ross Noble. Maybe it was even in the early days when as a young teen he juggled on the streets, entertaining passers-by. Either way, Ross has gotten to where he is with nothing other than pure merit and talent – and a whole lot of randomness.
 
Written by Amanda Sherring

When & Where: The Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool – March 16, GPAC, Geelong – March 17, Her Majesty’s Theatre, Ballarat – April 1 & Eastbank Centre, Shepparton – April 2.