NEW LANE

Ross Noble is out of his natural habitat and back in the saddle for his new three-part motorcycle series, Ross Noble: Off Road. Taking on the Scottish Six Days Trial, the stand-up comic tells Gemma Dunn how, despite being accustomed to big audiences, there’s nothing quite like riding in front of a crowd to ramp up the pressure. You’re a self-confessed bike fan, but the Scottish Six Days Trial is famously tough. How did you find yourself involved? It happened because I was racing dirt bikes and I’d gone and done Enduro Extreme, where you’re racing bikes, but you’re racing over these massive obstacles. All the guys that were really good at those races were trials riders, so I became a bit obsessed with trying to get as good as I could. Then I started doing local competitions, so the natural thing – and the way that I always do everything – was instead of going “Oh yeah this is fun”, I’ll go, “Right, what’s the hardest thing, the most extreme version of this that we can possibly do?” So yeah I just went, “Stuff it, let’s give it a go”. How did it fare in comparison to what you perceived it to be? I knew it would be hard, but I thought it would be much more light-hearted. When I’ve done extreme races in the past, there’s [been] a real sense of fun about it, a real sense of people just having a go and having a laugh, but actually with this, everybody was deadly serious. You say in the first episode that you’re in over your head. was there ever a point when you felt like giving up? Well that’s sort of what the series is about, really, because as it goes on, it doesn’t get any easier. Physically and mentally, it’s that thing of, are you going to walk away from it? Are you going to go, ‘This is too hard’? It’s more about how my relationship with James, my mate that I was doing it with, started to get stretched. It’s also that thing of, we’re making a documentary and the event is six days long – what happens if you don’t make it to the end?

0 Ross Noble tackles the Scottish Six Days Trial Do you need to be a fan of the sport to watch the show? Initially, we wanted to make a bike show but we decided it was much more of a comedy show. We had a lot more stuff where we were doing silly challenges and stuff, preparing for the trials, before we got there. And what we found was it was such a compelling story of a bunch of mates and the relationship between two friends, that it actually became something else. How did you find riding in front of the crowds? You’re no stranger to an audience, having embarked on 150date stand-up tours. It’s totally different and that’s what we tried to show – the fact that the whole thing was really intense, especially with people watching. [Standup] is what I do. I’ve been performing since I was a kid; I’ve put in my hours, so that doesn’t even register. I know that the idea of public speaking strikes fear into some people’s hearts, but I can go on stage in front of thousands of people and not even bat an eyelid. It’s just what I do. Whereas riding a motorbike over a load of boulders while people sit there with their phones, it just ramps up the pressure. You’ve been performing for nearly three decades. Could you ever anticipate such success? It’s amazing. I am loving it. I think it’s one of those things where you just do it gig by gig, tour by tour, and it’s only when you start looking back that you go, “Oh blimey, that’s quite a thing”. At the moment, I’m having a bit of a break from stand-up, because I am doing Young Frankenstein, the musical. I am eight shows a week singing and dancing and working with Mel Brooks. So from that point of view it’s bizarre. I find myself going, “Wow, I’m working with one of the greatest living film-comedy guys in the world”. After that you’re off to Australia on tour and then back to the UK – do you like to keep busy? I just like having fun, with work as well. I just basically do stuff that I think is going to be a laugh and I had a right laugh making Ross Noble: Off Road, doing the event and then putting it together. And then, you know, obviously with my stand-up and then Young Frankenstein at the minute – it’s perfect.

“We wanted to make abikeshowbutwe decided it was much more of a comedy show”