Ross Noble has taken the world of comedy by storm since he arrived on the scene in the late nineties. He has built up a large and loyal fan base by constantly touring believing that he is a stand-up performer rather than a television personality.But now Ross is teaming up with Vue Cinemas for a first in comedy. During his forthcoming tour 'Nobleism' Vue will be screening his shows live to a handful of cinemas across the country. Ross took time out to tell me how this partnership came about.

Why did you decide to pursue a career in comedy?
Because I could do bugger all else really I had no choice. Yeah it was either do that or I would have to get a job as some sort of, I dunno, like a freedom fighter anything that does not involve writing stuff down you know. Mind you I think that freedom fighters do have to put in their expense forms and stuff.
Is there anyone who is your inspiration?
I mean tons of people really but there is no one person that I would go that’s the person that I want to be like. Loads of comics that I admire really but there is no one person.
You are about to go on tour are you looking forward to it and why do you tour so often?
I can’t wait it’s going to be great. I tour pretty much all of the time because it’s what I do. I just love I just can’t help myself. Also it’s the sort of thing where there are comics go on tour because they feel like they have and to and they do it as a spin off from their TV stuff where as I tour and everything is a spin off from that.
But what’s it like standing on that stage all by yourself?
It’s amazing it’s one of those things were people always say to me ‘oh it must be terrifying it’s just you alone on stage with everyone starring at you’ and to some people must be the most terrifying thing imaginable but it’s exactly the opposite it’s like the most amazing thing. You know what it’s like when you are sitting around with friends and whatever you say something an everyone laughs and while you are pissing yourself times that by a thousand and that’s what it’s like. It’s just this big swirly, comfy blanket of laughter and you are right in the middle of it, this whirlpool of joy. And also you think of an idea and you say something or your brain has taken over and your mouth is going blah, blah, blah and as that is all happening it’s it’s just sort of, every time you get a laugh or an idea sparks in your head it’s just that release, like an endorphin release, of whoa whay and it’s amazing I highly recommend it.
But your shows are unscripted?
In as far as I don’t script them yeah. Well what I tend to do, well they are not completely unscripted, I might have a story that I might tell one night and if it’s funny I’ll say it again tomorrow, and then the next night I will do it in a different way or I might tell the second half of the story and leave out the first or whatever. The best way to describe it is it’s like a big mental sort of a constantly moving flow chart of ideas and things you know. I might be talking about buying a new pair of shoes and I might talk about those shoes every night for a week but I might say different things about them. It’s all very loose the show is a constant work in progress and at no point do I say that this is the show, that keeps it fresh.
And have you ever had a bad experience with a crowd?

Well it depends what you mean by bad, I’ve had incidents that weren’t good, but that’s kind of, bad is just a word to describe the situation. You know sometimes something that you might think would be really bad actually turns out to be really good; a fight broke out at one of my gigs, and you would think at that point the show was over, but it actually turned into a good thing.

Well VUE had, and the thing about this is it’s actually going to be live, VUE had done this with music events, sporting events and stuff and people could go along and watch these events as it happened, but they had never done it with comedy, so they were keen to give it a try and I was like ‘I will have some of that’. So it’s going to be the sort of thing where people can come along and watch a stand up gig, with an audience but won’t necessarily be in the same room.

Potentially you could be performing to thousands of people does that intimidate you at all?

No not at all no. It will just be the equivalent of doing a bigger show, it’s like ten thousand seats and the theatre hold just over two thousand so it would be the equivalent of just doing five nights in the same theatre.

What plans have you got for after the tour?

I’ve got a DVD coming out, when does that come out? It comes out the start of November and ten I’m off to Australia.

You do a lot of telly but is stand up where you heart lies or would you go into telly a bit like Lenny Henry and Victoria Wood who have made a very successful carer in television?

Well I sort of do telly on my own terms you know, because I have got such a big live following, I’m not one of those people who needs to be on TV I only do stuff that I want to do basically, which is basically stuff I think will be fun. I don’t want to just become one of those television personalities it has to be a stand up who occasionally appears on TV rather than a television personality who occasionally does stand up.

In a recent Channel four poll you came tenth in a list of 100 greatest stand ups has your success come as a surprise?

It was great that I was number ten, especially as you look was eleven to a hundred there were a lot of really good acts on there, but no it was great. What I like about it was I was voted number ten and I’ m not mainstream, I mean you look at some of the people on that list and think they were only voted for because they are on the telly all the time, and the fact that what I do is still a little bit underground, even though I pop up on TV, I’m not the bloke off the telly and made me sort of go well that’s purely and simply the people that have seen me live that have put me up there which is up there, which is brilliant.

Visit www.myvue.co.uk to find out which cinemas are participating in the event.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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