Creator / Ross Noble

"This isn't the most linear show you're likely to see."

— Ross Noble's massive understatement on his "Unrealtime" DVD.

You might not think that such hilarity would come from a hairy geordie bloke talking bollocks for two hours. But it does.

Ross Markham Noble (born 5 June 1976) is an English comedian, but unlike any other. His ability to improvise, his tendency to go off on strange, but relevant, tangents and the influence the audience has over him mean no two of his shows, even on the same tour, are alike. In the best possibly way, though, as there is a kind of surreal, stream-of-consciousness logic to what he says.

As the man himself describes it: "It's a bit like gluing meat to your face." ...Y'know, because it seems odd to most people, but it sort of has logic behind it: "They might just be trying to ward off the advances of an amorous vegan!"

List of DVDs

• Unrealtime (2004)
• Sonic Waffle (2005)
• Randomist (2006)
• Fizzy Logic (2007)
• Nobleism (2009)
• Things (2010)
• The Headspace Cowboy (2011)
• Nonsensory Overload (2012)
• Mindblender (2013)

Other Noteable Appearances

• Have I Got News for You
• QI
• Good News Week
• Spicks and Specks
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio)
• Ross Noble Goes Global (Radio)
• Room 101
• Top Gear
• Get This
• Stitches (2012) (film, starring role)
• Freewheeling - a British road trip series with members of the public instructing him where to go next via Twitter.
• Celebrity Apprentice Australia (2021)

He doesn't do drugs. Honestly. He doesn't even drink.

His website can be found here and his official YouTube account is here.

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Tropes associated with Ross Noble:

• Accidental Pervert: On one of his Australian tours, Ross (who is a motorcycle fan) told a story about going to Philip Island to see the Superbike World Championship (often abbreviated to 'WSBK'). He texted his friend in the UK "Going to Philip Island for WSBK", only to get back a confusing message. When he reread his original text, he discovered that autocorrect had converted 'WSBK' to 'WANKS', presumably leading his friend to assume he has a bizarre sexual interest in penguins.
  Ross: And to make it worse, it was plural!
• Accidental Unfortunate Gesture: In his Humournoid tour, Ross tells a story of how an unfortunate confluence of events resulted in him standing in a hotel corridor, rocking back and forth with very suggestive hip thrusts, and grunting. When he looked up, he locked eyes with a female hotel employee who was walking towards him. She immediately turned around and started walking away. His attempt to explain what was going on made things worse.
• All Germans Are Nazis: Subverted when he talks about the new Pope, ZE CARDINAL!! RATZINGER!!!
  Ross: I'm not saying he's a Nazi because he's German. I'm saying he's a Nazi 'cos he is one.
• Artifact of Death: A muffin serves as an ominous portent.
  Ross: John. I've seen your face in the top of a muffin, mate. I'd stay indoors for a bit.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The cause of a lot of his tangents. Especially minor, odd things he notices the audience or even himself doing.
  • One example is a five minute spot he had a Canadian comedy festival, he never actually got to any of his material he spent the whole time talking about the architecture of the stage.
  • This even applies to his DVD commentaries, the finest example of which has to be the Things show commentary. He spends at least fifteen minutes interrupting himself and going off on tangents, and, in fact, interrupts his tangents to go off on more tangents. As the man himself says,
    Ross: It's like a never-ending spiral of possibilities!
  • In an absurdly literal case, during one filming of The Headspace Cowboy both Ross and the audience are repeatedly distracted by individual pieces of confetti slowly falling onto the stage, apparently left over from some previous show.
• Audience Participation: Ross encourages people to shout at him during the show, as long as they don't interrupt him. A lot of fans toss things onto the stage as well, which he will usually discuss in minute detail. And anyone who is late will be the main subject of discussion for at least the next five minutes.
• Auto-Incorrect: On one of his Australian tours, Ross (who is a motorcycle fan) told a story about going to Philip Island to see the Superbike World Championship (often abbreviated to 'WSBK'). He texted his friend in the UK "Going to Philip Island for WSBK", only to get back a confusing message. When he reread his original text, he discovered that autocorrect had converted 'WSBK' to 'WANKS', presumably leading his friend to assume he has a bizarre sexual interest in penguins.
  Ross: And to make it worse, it was plural!
• The Beastmaster: According to Ross, Jon Bon Jovi was once attacked by a swarm of cats, leading him to believe he possessed the power to command animals. They actually just wanted to play with the tassels on his jacket.
• Berserk Button:
  • Bono. F'ckin-BONO!?
    Ross: When's someone gonna turn round to Bono and go, "OI BONO! TAKE THOSE GLASSES OFF! YOU LOOK LIKE A TWAT!!! YOU'RE FROM IRELAND! YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN OWN SUNGLASSES!!!"
  • Religious folks, too, somewhat.
• Bizarchitecture: The oyster-shaped car showroom was built to be Noble's "Oyster Domain!".
  • Ross also has no idea what the big orange thing/aka. the set of his Randomist tour. He thinks it looks like an Easyjet plane crash.
• Black Comedy Rape: The story of the bum-faced child in Fizzy Logic getting "bummed in the face" by a baboon.
  Ross: Everybody come quickly! This child is being bummed in the face!
• Bohemian Parody: At a show in Canberra, Australia, Ross was delighted to discover that an audience member in the front row worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics: the government agency that,amongst other duties, conducts the 5 yearly national census. Ross then ad libbed a lengthy bit where he was a census taker asking an imaginary person a series of questions, and then repeating their answers back; the answers gradually building up into the lyrics of "Bohemian Rhapsody".
• Brick Joke:
  • His Nonsensory Overload show had him reference his famous "meat-on-the-face" bit from Live at the Apollo from 2004. Said bit was in reference to Lady Gaga's 'meat dress' and was given with no explanation whatsoever, making it quite a non-sequitur for a few people. Lampshaded immediately afterwards.
    Ross: That's one for the fans, you see.
  • This happens with a number of jokes in each routine due to his habit of making tangents. Jokes referenced in the first twenty minutes often don't get concluded until the very end.
• Broken Record:
  • "Bummed in the Face!" Bummed in the face? Bummed in the face!
  • There's a face. Next muffin... There's a face. Next muffin... There's a face...... Next muffin.
  • Moving and touching and touching and moving and touching and moving and moving and touching And touching and moving and moving and touching...
  • In Randomist Ross' impersonation of Sky News is "There's loads of bad shit happening in the world- bad shit happening in the world. Don't go! There's more bad shit happening in the world. More bad shit happening. Non-stop, twenty-four-seven."
• Catchphrase:
  • Nothing in particular or "official", but there are certain phrases he says quite a bit. One notable example is "Shut your faces!" when people laugh while he's trying to say something serious (usually because it's so outlandish). For example, at one show shortly after the birth of his daughter, an audience member asked him what they named her. When he replied "Elf", the audience all laughed. "Oh, shut your faces!".
  • He almost always starts shows with "Hello, hello, hello, how are you, are you all doing very well?"
• Cloudcuckoolander: At least he owns it.
  Ross: My missus has to live with it all the time!
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The signature flared sleeves of Ross's shirts appear to be matched to the backdrops of his shows.
• Cool Shades: Averted. Ross thinks Bono's glasses make him look like a a) a fly and b) a twat.
• Dream-Crushing Handicap: In one show of the Things tour, one of the tangents involved a Street Urchin with rickets wanting to join Riverdance.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • In-Universe. During Randomist Ross tells a story of how he made a joke about Live 8 on a radio interview and the listeners called in to complain.
  • When the audience finds an intentionally dirty joke in something Ross has said, he often comments how disgusting they are (obviously Played for Laughs).
• Ending Fatigue:
  • In-Universe and lampshaded: WHAT HAPPENED AT LIVE 8 ROSS? (Randomist)
  • "I hope we find out what the second thing is."
  • "There's a fine line between entertainment, and a hostage situation."
• Expospeak Gag: "An Owl Neck Detection Device... which is really just a stick with a pointy bit on it"
• Fee Fi Faux Pas: A truly legendary example happened in Adelaide during the 2012 tour. During the interval, one of the items left on the stage was a piece of smiley fritz (a kind of ham made to look like a face that is exclusive to South Australia), and Ross decided that it was the most bogan thing he'd ever seen, immediately launching into making fun of it. He put his hands all over it then put it on his face, but it slid off too easily, so he borrowed the sunglasses of a woman in the front row to hold it on there. So he put the fritz on his face and then the glasses on top, making them all sticky. When done, he apologised, admitting sheepishly that he hoped the woman wasn't vegetarian. She was Muslim. Ross very apologetically offered to buy her new glasses and give her free merchandise, admitting that he would be dining out on the story for a long time.
• Foreign Queasine: At one point during his Australian trip, Ross has the pleasure of trying Pig Nipples, Duck's Nuts, and pickled Lamb's Brain.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band:
  • Fizzy Logic gives us Simian Artillery and The Latecomers. Both of which are now actual bands.
  • 'Arse maneuvers' is suggested during Headspace Cowboy.
  • In Unrealtime, he says that 'Deep Vein Thrombosis' sounds like a jazz musician.
• Improbable Weapon User: In Fizzy Logic, Ross suggests that a big burly audience member named Peter can kill a wolf with his big burly cock.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Ross hopes to one day crossbreed a pig with a unicorn, to create a pig with a spike on its head that he can use in assassination attempts.
• Ice-Cream Koan: There's an old Chinese proverb which states: "It is no easier for a blind man to see the pigs of reality, than it is for an man with no arms to throw open the doors of perception." And from this, we learn that old Chinese people don't half talk a load of bollocks.
• Inherently Funny Words: Uses 'mofo's' and 'Fiddy' to their full comic effect parodying 50 Cent.
• It Makes Sense in Context:
  • ...at least it will if you don't drift off and lose track of what he's saying. Or turn up late.
  • Although if you turn up late, you will be guaranteed to be worked in to his current and all future tangents.
    • Parodied on one of his shows (possibly Nobleism) when he started talking about his mate's plums and said it would be unfortunate if somebody stopped paying attention then turned their mind back to the anecdote, because knowing him it would end up being something like
      Ross: ...AND HE WAS RIDING A GOLDEN DONKEY!
  • An In-Universe example appears in Randomist when he talks about his experience half-watching Sky News while taking a telephone call. He looked up the television screen and saw the words "Turkey Talks" and "Hurdles Mainly Muslims". This was in fact referring to how Turkey wanted to join the EU, so they were having discussions, and one of the main issues about it joining was that it's a mainly Muslim country. Of course, Ross believed it was a talking turkey taking part in an odd athletics event.
  • Another In-Universe example is the tour manager testing the acoustics in a theatre: "You're shouting "testicle" in a theatre"
• Kids Are Cruel: Kids will tease bummed-face children and probably put it into some form of song.
  Ross: You've got a face like a bum, you've got a bum face.
• Looks Like Jesus: In recent years, Ross has begun maintaining a beard, completing the look. Apparently, it came to a point that Amazon.co.uk began confusing his DVD covers and suggested Jesus of Nazareth to those who buy his DVDs^note as he related in Have I Got News for You.
• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: Even if you do make it to the show on time, his multiple tangents and outside-the-box way of thinking means that things can get really weird really quickly!
  Ross: Quickly! The scousers are coming, and they're demanding pineapples! And, if we don't get the pineapples, someone's nanna's going to have a stroke, and thirty-three-thousand sausages are going to have to be tipped on her! And we're not going to get the sausages unless Beyoncé kills a pig!
• Mistaken for Racist: A few of his jokes involve this:
  • Ross sometimes tells a story about one of his daughters, who loved juice so much as a baby that it was one of the first words she learned to say. one day, she sees a boy in stereotypical Orthodox Jewish attire drinking a carton of juice, and starts shouting "Juice! Juice!" at him, while reaching for the carton in a way that could easily be mistaken for a certain kind of salute that was popular in 1930's Germany. The only thing Ross could think to say to alleviate the embarrassment was to tell the boy's horrified family "I'm sorry, she's not actually mine, I'm babysitting for Mel Gibson."
  • In another joke, Ross claims that prior to the 2016 Brexit referendum, he was worried that voters would become complacent due to predictions that it would be an easy win for Remain, and made sure to tells everyone he met "Don't trust the polls!"
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Rossbeast, pictured at the top of the page, which has four heads on thin, snake-like necks, a turtle's shell, crab's claws, an eagle's wings, several octopus-like tentacles, and dragon-like feet.
• Monster Clown: His character in Stitches (2012) is a zombie clown.
• Mundane Utility: Using laser eye-beams to heat soup.
• Naked People Are Funny: While telling an anecdote of when he and one of his crew were setting up a gig, with the only other person in the room being the elderly cleaner, an audience member randomly laughs. He then goes on to say how old people aren't inherently funny, unless they're naked. This leads into a tangent about a naked old man cleaning up by picking up candy wrappers with his sweaty bollocks.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Radioactive Kung-Fu Fridge Boy and Monkey Slayer!
• "No Talking or Phones" Warning: Ross is fond of beginning his shows with some form of animation or short film that conveys this warning to the audience. See, for example, Sparky the information slug from Unrealtime, and The Singing Orbs from Fizzy Logic.
• Off the Rails:
  • Whenever he appears on Good News Week, he causes games to go off the rails, usually with whatever toys the producers were stupid enough to give him.
  • Or hijacking whatever toys they happened to give the person sitting next to him. Granted, it was still stupid to give a big smokey hat to anyone remotely near Ross Noble.
  • This would apply to his live shows as well, except that assumes that they have rails to begin with.
• Out-Gambitted: By his wife (before they were married.)
  Ross: Fran! Do we need nappies?
  Fran: No Ross, it's alright The doctor says you don't have to wear them any more. You bloody idiot!
• Overly Long Gag:
  • "Quick! This child is being bummed in the face!" "What?" "Bummed in the face! Help, this child is being bummed in the face!" "I can't understand a word you're saying!" "Bummed in the face!" "Bummed in the face you say?" This went on for about ten minutes.
  • A less extreme one here, starting at about 8:30.
• A Rare Sentence: Due to the Improv/stream-of-consciousness nature of his comedy, Ross Noble often finds himself musing of the downright strangeness of what he has just said. During one of his recorded stand-up show, in which his opening spiel has gone even further off the rails than he normal, he comments:
  What I love about my job is that it is so unpredictable. At breakfast this morning, when I was wondering where tonight's show might go, I never imagined that within the first ten minutes I'd be yelling the words "HORNY SHIRE HORSE WARNING!"
• Running Gag: Frequently, but only within each individual show.
  • A common gag is Ross' inability to finish a story once he's started it without getting distracted by something else.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: The "No Talking or Phones" Warning for the El Hablador tour showed the many punishments that would be inflicted on any twat who disobeyed the warning. One of them was being attacked by a swarm of trained killer bees.
• Sophisticated as Hell: In one show during his Mind Blender tour, he senses the room is split between high-brow academics and low-brow bogans. He attempts to please them both by making a joke about putting his cock in the large hadron collider.
• Take a Third Option: Discussed in this clip. When faced with a brown snake, rather than "fight or flight", his mind goes with "look for something you can fashion into a flute".
• That Came Out Wrong: During the Humourmoid tour, Ross tells how he suffered several injuries as a result of running a half marathon without training first. The worst of these was chafing of his groin. As a result he was moving vey carefully to avoid further inflaming the area. However, when his legs locked up while he was trying to open his hotel room door, he found himself rocking back and forth with very suggestive hip thrusts and grunting uncontrollably. A female hotel employee saw and immediately started walking away. In a desperate attempt to explain, he blurted out "It's because of my testicles!".
• Throw It In!: Just about everything he does in his stand up routines.
• Urine Trouble: His shows go on for a while, so occasionally he'll refer to people desperately waiting for the interval so they can go to the toilet.
  Ross: PISS IS GONNA COME OUT OF OUR EYES!!!

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