A Noble approach to life
Long-haired funnyman Ross Noble is making himself at home in his comedy bunker during the virus outbreak. ELLA WALKER talks to him about the benefits of laughter
Do you believe laughter is good for you?
IT’S good for your mental wellbeing – definitely, definitely. Anything that exercises that imagination muscle has got to be a good thing.
The thing is, you’ve got a device in your pocket now that can access all recorded entertainment since the dawn of time – since cinema was invented – so you can binge-watch whatever you want.
The world can feel overwhelming at the moment. Does comedy provide an escape?
IT’S always important to have a laugh, I think that doesn’t change.
It’s the first time in history that everybody is instantly connected to all world knowledge, and everyone’s broadcasting and everyone’s receiving – how sane the world is, or how insane the world is, is directly reflected in how you’re taking in that information.
How different are you when it comes to performing?
THE main difference is when I’m on stage I tend to say everything out loud. Whereas in my day-to-day life, if I have an idea, instead of following it and saying it out loud, I’m more likely to internalise it, which is fine, except you can just look like you’re staring at people.
I just disappear into my own head a bit more.
You work without a script. Do you ever worry about being lost for words?
I KNOW some people might have terrible anxiety in case they can’t think of anything to say, but no, basically if that were to ever happen, I’d probably get 20 minutes out of the fact my mind’s gone blank, you know? So there’s no point worrying. I never do.
But also, I’ve been doing stand-up now for nearly 30 years and it’s never happened in all that time, so I mean, ask me again when I’m a pensioner and I might be going, ‘It happens all the time’, but then that’d be funny.
You’re now 43 and have been doing stand-up since you were 15. Are you getting funnier or descending into grumpy old man territory?
AM I getting funnier? Yeah, I think so. The more you’re doing it, the more you become closer and closer to who you actually are. It’s all I’ve ever done.
Doesn’t everybody enjoy making people laugh? Like when you’re a kid and you’re mucking about with your mates and they’re all laughing, surely everyone must feel like that at some point?
I just decided to do it as a job. I’m dyslexic, so I found school incredibly tedious because it just wasn’t easy, and as result I was very bored a lot of the time, so my whole thing was just about having fun.
Are you an embarrassing dad to your daughters?
I DID say to my 11-year-old ‘If you do think I start to become an embarrassing dad, just tell me and I’ll tone it back’. And she said, ‘Right, yeah I will’, and then she went, ‘Nah, actually, I think that’s quite funny’.
They had an assembly – back when school wasn’t cancelled – and a pop dance troupe came in to get the kids dancing and all that. For most parents you could see their blood running cold, and they were getting really nervous because they said, ‘All the parents get up’, and they made us do this dance-off and nobody was fully committing.
The thing about me is, I love to dance. I fully committed.
Your kids weren’t mortified?
MY six-year-old is in the same school. I was mainly doing it to make her laugh.
I apologised to the eldest one, like, ‘Oh sorry, was that embarrassing?’ And she said, ‘No, I was laughing’, and all her friends were laughing too. So no, they think I’m funny.
What’s your parenting style like?
I’M quite laid-back. If I’m supervising I’ll let them play with craft knives and stuff, and if I’m around and the little one wants to jump off stuff, she’ll go ‘I’m gonna jump off there and land on that’.
And I’ll say, ‘Go on then, yeah, give it a try.’
If they’re just being rude or behaving in a way I think is a bit antisocial, then I get incredibly strict with them, But if they’re doing something that could potentially endanger themselves, I explain the danger and then give them the option.
What makes you laugh more than anything?
THE thing I laughed at the most in my entire life was walking down the street,and there were two old men – one of their hats blew off. It flew up in the air, flipped around and landed perfectly on the other one’s head.
I’ve never seen anything quite as funny as that.
Dates for Ross Noble’s Humournoid tour are being rescheduled because of the coronavirus outbreak. For dates, ticket updates, gems of wisdom and a free comedy show go to rossnoble.com
If (my kids) are doing something that could endanger them, I explain the danger and then give them the option