Comedy

‘What do you think that is?’

Ross Noble is pointing to a saucer sitting on the table between us. It’s either earwax or honey. I guess the chances of it being the former are slim, unless he has a nasty infection and is having to regularly drain his ears between interviews.

‘Is it honey?’ I ask tentatively. ‘It is.’ He nods, looking slightly bemused by this. ‘It’s honey for the tea.’

There is a slight pause as we both take this in.

‘It’s quite posh here,’ I venture. Noble nods sagely.
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We’re sat in a private members club in Soho. ‘Last time I came here,’ he says, ‘I couldn’t find the right door. I woke up this guy next door who had been up all night making rubber gimp suits or something. They can only make them at night it seems. In fact, I believe, all bondage gear’s made by mogwai. So don’t ever feed them after midnight. That might be why you don’t ever find snacks lying around in sex shops.’

It is around this time that I realise Ross Noble on-stage is more or less exactly the same as Ross Noble off-stage. Interviewing him is like chatting to your funniest mate when you’re both hammered and everything in the universe seems hilarious. In the normal world these golden moments only last for a few minutes and are normally ended by a wave of vomit. For Noble, though, this is a permanent state of being. Has he always been able to be himself when performing?

‘No, not at all. When I first started out on the circuit I wanted to be Jack Dee. That’s what I thought a comic was, dressed in a suit and with loads of funny one-liners and gags. And that’s what I tried in the beginning.’

It’s hard to picture Noble in a suit. He’s sat in front of me constantly sweeping his long, black straggly goth hair off his hawkish face. He looks less like Jack Dee and more like Dracula on the day he couldn’t find his cloak so went for a black puffer vest-jacket instead. So what happened to that version of Ross Noble?

‘He just wasn’t very funny. It didn’t work for me. Before all that I’d been a street performer and juggler. It taught me how to talk to people and make it part of the show, from the drunk guy shouting out “yyeeuuughhh” randomly to little chavs trying to steal your stuff. I just started talking to the club audiences like I did to guys on the street, and they began laughing more.’

Noble is famous for his improvisation and flights of fancy. How much is genuinely made up on the spur of the moment though? ‘I don’t sit down and write gags as such. I might think about something during the day – like about varnish or sandpaper, like taking a table into the desert and tying it behind a jeep and driving it around to sand it down or something and just talk about that. There’s a framework of logic where idea leads to idea and I just follow it, but I don’t know where it’ll go.’

Doesn’t he get nervous before shows, not knowing exactly where the laughs will come from? ‘I don’t get nervous, it’s more excitement really. I’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s a bit like driving. When you’re learning, it’s a bit bumpy and jumpy, but then it becomes second nature and you actually look forward to going out for a nice drive in the country, it doesn’t matter if you know where you’re going or not, you just enjoy the ride. Besides, there’s nothing that gets you more motivated for work than having 2,000 people cheering for you. Everyone should have that. Even the guy who mops up the spunk on the floor of some strip joint round here would feel great about going to work if people cheered him every time he turned up.’

Reluctantly, I end the interview and have to leave the wonderful bubble of Nobleland and head back out on the streets of Soho. I pass a sex club and see a guy sweeping the steps. I am tempted to clap and whoop to see if Noble’s theory holds water, but come to my senses just in time to realise how much harder it would be to write this article with a broom handle rammed up my arse.

Ross Noble performs his show ‘Nobleism’ at the Hammersmith Apollo on Friday and Saturday.