Back in March I had a great time seeing a live show by the brilliant comedian Ross Noble, and followed it up by rewatching and reviewing all of his DVDs in May and June.
He switched to online releases from 2017 onwards, as he didn’t feel there was a market for DVDs any more, which was a shame, but at least we can still enjoy his hilarious improvised comedy that way.
So for this final part of my trilogy of Ross Noble review posts, I’m going to look through his streaming releases, along with various other bits and pieces I haven’t already mentioned in the previous couple of posts. I’m not reviewing absolutely everything he’s ever starred in of course, these are just the main things I’ve taken an interest in. And you can see a wide selection of clips of Ross on my Youtube playlist as well. So I hope you enjoy!
Contents
Online Stand-Up
Brain Dump
In 2017, Ross released edited versions of 6 shows from his Brain Dump tour on Vimeo, priced at £3.50 each or £15 for the set. They’re no longer available today, but I was able to download them and create my own DVDs at the time, and I’ve kept digital copies on my computer as well, so thankfully I can still watch them.
The shows run for 5½ hours in total, with Ross standing in front of a set that represents a messy pile of huge lightbulbs, and they’re all very funny as usual:
- Tiny Toaster (44 minutes) – Here Ross talks about various things including a man holding up a plastic drinking glass, Derren Brown, Derek Acorah, a woman who bought a toaster that’s too small for the bread she likes, an Egyptian tribute act to Prince, The Lion King, supporting different groups of people, the ways people react when they notice him in restaurants, sex with the Invisible Woman and zombies, food being served in restaurants in unusual ways, and how to enter an orgy in a wind tunnel.
- Pogo Donkey (56 minutes) – Topics in this show include a local classic car event, fitting pogo sticks to donkeys with no legs, what happens when a fart is accidentally more than just gas, sex with dolphins, TMI from a woman who goes out to use the loo, a crazy bucket list, David Bowie and other musicians who have died recently, being a shouting chef, Nigella Lawson, snorting powdered spines, when it’s acceptable to shout at people to ask if they’re having a good time, and how to deal with people having sex loudly in the next room.
- Mouse Jamboree (1 hour 24 minutes) – The topics and tangents here include driving around Melbourne, a fat man being a tram, a man wearing a fox hat, ballroom dancing, telepathic communication, sneaky terrorists, weak sperm, why you shouldn’t whoop for your dad’s balls (with a very funny mime about trying to drink a cup of tea), a testicle-based police drama, a painter who did Ross’ house, people who like dressing as animals (furries), why clairvoyants and spiritualists are liars, tiny communities like Liliputians, Russell Crowe in musicals, a dispute over a burger discount, putting a tiny flag in his bottom, and his experience of having a vasectomy.
- Drunk Scalextric (51 minutes) – Filmed in Newcastle near Christmas time, Ross notices the short fence for the people in the upper circle, and talks to a pregnant lady, a man wearing a Tardis jumper and a guy with random animal tattoos. He also goes off on various tangents about calendar bingo, trying to pee more quickly, a filthy Hiemlich enthusiast, packing up children, Sven Adult Books, how Newcastle has changed, Holland & Barrett, camp Daleks, badgers, and cooking weasels (a routine based on Pop Goes The Weasel).
- Aggressive Twiddling (50 minutes) – After racing a few latecomers against each other, Ross is distracted by a spider on the stage, as a result of which he gently teases a lady who’s terrified of it before he gets rid of it. He then goes on to talk about peeing on a jellyfish, diving at the Olympics, a woman who had to use her brother’s ticket, flesh tobogganing, twiddling in the bedroom, glass trilby hats, a rubber scorpion, feminine hygiene, and Bruce Forsyth being made of bees.
- Harpsichord (43 minutes) – There’s a technical problem with the curtain at the start of this show, which doesn’t bother Ross as he gets plenty of comedy out of it anyway until it’s fixed. The plaster casts of topless women playing medieval instruments in the auditorium also get his attention. He then goes on to talk about being killed by a harpsichord, Bob Dylan, a doctor in the audience, Macclesfield, dry stone walls, Countryfile, Rihanna, and airbrushed women in magazines. He then finishes by talking about swimming, including old women who do it, an experience he had in an outdoor pool in Australia, and how his young daughter embarrassed him by making an inadvertently inappropriate comment in public.
El Hablador
In 2020, a couple of shows from Ross’ 2018 El Hablador tour, edited down to 43 minutes each, were broadcast on ABC Comedy in Australia, and made available to stream on their Iview catch-up service. But someone recorded them and uploaded them to Youtube, with a bit of image flipping to try and avoid copyright strikes. So they’ll get taken down eventually, but I’m glad I’ve been able to see them.
In the first episode Ross talks about glitter factories, a dead mermaid, perfume adverts, an art teacher, veganism, elephants, smoking ham, replacing French phrases after Brexit, a blasé hippopotamus, killing a pig, a misunderstanding involving hand sanitiser, testicular chafing, and using too much Deep Heat in a hotel.
Then in the other episode, Ross talks to a woman with crutches, a pillow, and a torch who has moved to Melbourne from Scotland, along with a man who has a ‘lap trampoline’, a lady with a laugh like an alarm and a woman who works in a coroner’s court. He also explains how the big skull on the set caused problems in a previous gig, muses on what sort of ghost he wants to be, and considers what women really want in men.
Humournoid
This is the latest of Ross’ shows to be released online, and at the time of writing it’s still available on his website for £9.99, which allows you to stream it 5 times within a year. Sadly you can’t download the show to keep.
The show was filmed during the UK leg of his postponed Humournoid tour, which was his first time back on the road since the Covid pandemic. So there are inevitably a few references to that, including the panic-buying of toilet roll, homeschooling and hand sanitiser.
But that’s only a small part of his 90-minute performance, as among other things he also jokes about the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, a bishop, an archaeologist with dinosaur dust, a sticky woodsman with an old lady, a rock fan with unusual tattoos, a dolphin-like man trying to complain on social media, fighting in a Chinese takeaway, Aslan from Narnia, The Lion King, an embarrassing incident with a hotel keycard, and a lengthy but hilarious routine about the sign language for monkey tits (which he acknowledged afterwards wouldn’t have worked for the blind, but thankfully I could see it and it was brilliant).
The clip below isn’t from that recording, but from another show on the same tour posted by a theatre in Nottingham, where he sees a guide dog in the audience, so it fits here nicely.
Comedy Horror
Stitches
Back in 2012, Ross made his movie debut in Stitches, which is available on DVD but I watched it on Amazon Video. And it’s good, silly fun.
Ross plays Richard Grindle, better known as a clown called Stitches, who dies in a horrific accident at a party after being mocked mercilessly by the children he was trying to entertain. The party was being held for the 10th birthday of a boy called Tommy, played by Tommy Knight – who would later become well known as Luke Smith in The Sarah Jane Adventures and its parent programme Doctor Who, as well as Kevin Chalk in Waterloo Road and Brodie in the historical drama Victoria, among his many other acting roles.
Tommy visits Stitches’ grave to pay his respects, only to witness a group of clowns performing a strange ritual involving an egg with a face on it to bring Stitches back to life. Tommy is then spotted and caught, and forewarned that a clown who dies without finishing a party won’t rest in peace, and jokes aren’t funny the second time around.
Those events, along with some disturbing hallucinations, haunt Tommy for the next 6 years, and it all comes to a head at his 16th birthday party, to which he’s persuaded to invite a large group of friends. Stitches drops in as an unexpected guest and sets about wreaking his deadly revenge, by using extreme versions of the jokes the children had played on him originally.
It takes a little while to get to the killing spree, which dominates the second half of the film, but it’s worth the wait, as the murders are creatively fun and varied, in a cartoon-like style, with funny one-liners accompanying them. There’s quite a bit of blood and gore as well, they don’t shy away from that, and the special effects are pretty good.
There’s also a great soundtrack, including the appropriately named hit song (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight by Cutting Crew and a catchy piece called Funk Epidemic by Mob Fandango, alongside an original score by Paul McDonnell. And during the credits there are some amusing little outtakes to look out for. The ending does leave open the possibility for a sequel, but that’s never come to fruition in the 12 years since then, so it’s very unlikely it’ll ever happen.
So it’s an enjoyably silly movie to pass the time. Ross is very good in it, as is everyone else, and it looks like they had fun during its production. It’s also a fun fact that Ross actually was a street entertainer and joined a clown troupe for a brief time before getting into standup, so he was able to bring a few of the skills he learned to the role.
Since then, Ross has also appeared in a few other film productions, including:
- Nails & The Circle – A couple of horror flicks from 2017.
- The Wishmas Tree – An animated children’s movie from 2020.
- Time Bandits – A new series that launched in July this year on Apple TV , based on the Time Bandits film, in which Ross has a guest role as a Stonehenge builder.
I’m not planning to watch any of those though. The horror films have had poor reviews compared to Stitches, so I’m happy sticking to that, plus I’m not interested in seeing a children’s film, and I’m not paying to subscribe to Apple TV just to see a brief guest spot.
Young Frankenstein
It’s not just stand-up that Ross has performed in theatres. He also spent 6 months playing the hunchbacked servant Igor in the musical Young Frankenstein, written by Mel Brooks.
The show premiered at the Newcastle Theatre Royal in August 2017 before transferring to the Garrick Theatre in London’s West End in September that year, which is where I was lucky enough to see it a couple of months later.
I didn’t have audio description on this occasion, which I use for many shows I attend, but that was fine. I managed to get myself a good seat in Row C to see things as best I could, and I was able to look at things closely with my monocular at various moments during the show, which worked out nicely.
And it was amazing. I didn’t stop smiling from start to finish, because I was laughing so much. It was a delightful, feel-good, hilarious comedy that didn’t take itself too seriously, and you could tell that the cast were enjoying themselves.
Ross was an inspired choice as Igor, he nailed it. Even when he wasn’t saying anything, his facial expressions and body language always made you laugh. Birds Of A Feather star Lesley Joseph was also wonderful in the role of housekeeper Frau Blucher, and the rest of the cast were great too.
Plus the music and choreography were brilliant as well. I certainly had a few of the songs running around my head afterwards, especially Puttin’ On The Ritz, and I was delighted that a soundtrack album was also released. I’ve included all of the tracks in my Ross Noble playlist on Youtube if you scroll down far enough.
So it was well worth going, and I’m glad I was able to see Ross before he left the show in February the following year. He was replaced by Cory English, who had previously been part of the Broadway cast, and I know he’s had rave reviews as well.
Documentaries
Freewheeling
The Headspace Cowboy DVD included an extra feature from 2011 called the Sit Down Tour, where Ross took up suggestions from his Twitter followers for random places to visit and things to do.
It proved to be a successful idea, because he went on to make 2 series of a show called Freewheeling, which was broadcast on Dave in 2013 and 2015. Only Series 2 is available on U (formerly UKTV Play) and on Sky’s website, but nearly all of the episodes from Series 1 are unofficially on Dailymotion at the time of writing.
It’s a lot of fun, because it’s so delightfully random, just like Ross’ mind, so it suits him perfectly, and he occasionally meets other celebrities along the way. You can also find out about the motorbike he rides in the show in an online episode of Bike World.
Here’s an overview of what the episodes include, each lasting an hour on TV, or around 45 minutes without adverts. He certainly packs a lot in!
Series 1
- Episode 1 – To begin with this episode focuses on a ceramic dog that Ross buys in Weedon Bec, with which he organises a little competition with other people who have similar ornaments, and then arranges for his dog to be painted and sprayed to improve its appearance. He also goes to an old people’s home in error, does an impromptu presentation at a company meeting, and interrupts comedian Eddie Izzard during a sound check while carrying a small hedge. Finally he’s invited to edit an issue of the Swindon Advertiser, for which he goes out and finds people in the high street to help him make up some silly stories. On the newspaper’s website you can still see some photos of him tracking down the news, a summary of the amusing stories he made up, his agony column, a special page 3 photo, and an interview with him.
- Episode 2 – This episode sees him climbing the crooked spire at Chesterfield Parish Church, joining in with a crafts event at the St Helens Women’s Institute where they wrap him up in a giant scarf (and one of their members posted some footage of their own from the day), playing paintball with archaeology students, helping magician Paul Daniels to get an old illusion out of his shed, and bringing cakes and the scarf from the WI to Johnny Vegas in a pub.
- Episode 3 – Here Ross learns about sex toys made by Lovehoney, livens up a dull meeting with a prank involving doughnuts, works in a mobile coffee van, visits a company that builds theatre sets, explores an old bank vault, stumbles upon a fetish photoshoot involving a woman in a bath, and finds novel uses for an industrial sized pack of custard powder with some help from fellow comedian Bob Mortimer.
- Episode 4 – Ross’ main mission in this episode is to find some typewriters and monkeys to see if there’s any truth to the infinite monkey theory, about them generating the complete works of Shakespeare if left for long enough. One of the typewriters is from a lady who admits to illegal downloading and gives him an album called Skinny Fingers produced by her band called Mozura. He also meets a man called Benjamin Mee at Dartmoor Zoo, who wrote the book We Bought A Zoo that inspired a film starring Matt Damon, and while there Ross gives a talk about jaguars and feeds a tiger as well as presenting a typewriter to the monkeys. He then goes to Wild Futures’ Monkey Sanctuary, where he makes a spoof documentary about monkeys and re-enacts 2001: A Space Odyssey with people dressed in monkey costumes. And as if all that isn’t enough, he takes inspiration from a friendly group of Jehovah’s Witnesses and finishes the show by inventing his own religion at Plymouth University, including his own version of the Watchtower magazine called The Toll Booth.
- Episode 5 – Ross begins this episode by taking over a wedding and hosting the speeches, at the request of the bride to surprise the groom and their guests, which goes down very well. He also recreates the bullet time effect from The Matrix in a supermarket, cooks on a disposable barbecue by Stokesley Fire Station, and loses a group of cyclists on his way to Whitby. The big finale then sees him recreating an incident that allegedly took place with Birds Of A Feather star Lesley Joseph at a café, with Ross wearing a mask of her, only for the actress herself to then be spotted outside. The two of them later starred together in the musical Young Frankenstein, as mentioned earlier in this post.
- Episode 6 – This episode isn’t available online, sadly. But according to the British Comedy Guide, it involves Ross staging a spoof version of the Antiques Roadshow with people’s tatty items in a strip club in York, and a hunting game with Rufus Hound where they search the streets of London for a lady wearing a fox outfit.
Series 2
- Episode 1 – In this episode Ross meets a guy to help him win a bet about whether he would turn up, gets people in Leicester to throw slices of cheese at him, and gathers some entertainers to surprise a woman flying into Newcastle Airport. The main story, however, involves Ross supporting a man called Brian who’s appearing in court in Sunderland, including a public campaign, a radio interview, court artists, the insights of another solicitor, and a backstage meeting with Billy Ocean to have him record a motivational message.
- Episode 2 – This series has a few callbacks to previous encounters as it progresses, more so than in Series 1, because Ross is on a continuous journey throughout. So early on in this episode, Ross delivers Billy Ocean’s inspirational message to other people called Brian. He also meets a lady wearing a dragon onesie in the street, and gets to have a cameo in a film called The Fairy Flag set in the 15th century that’s being made at Balgonie Castle in Glenrothes. Then at the end of the episode he gets some of the warriors from that movie to fight for the dragon lady’s affections to the tune of Suddenly by Billy Ocean. In between all of that he also explores the high street in Helmsdale to kill some time, as the people at the La Mirage fish and chip shop don’t have time to talk to him as he’d hoped, before visiting the Shangri-La B&B in a house up the road that Barbara Cartland used to live in. And he also re-enacts the Trainspotting movie by riding away from people dressed as Scottish clichés.
- Episode 3 – After being told not to visit Northampton because it’s shit, Ross goes to the town to try and prove otherwise. He meets a few residents, including a guy called Marlon, and gets them together to watch a woman’s extra copy of Love Actually on DVD – which they describe to us as they obviously can’t show it – and then he tries to destroy the disc in creative ways. He then bumps into a couple of councillors who are happy to plug the town, and the council leader takes him around the Shoe Museum, but Ross then discovers that nobody else from the council is allowed to be seen or heard on camera. He also visits a shoe factory, gets people to say hello to each other across the street through their windows and sparks a radio debate about whether the town’s any good. The big event, however, is a ceremony he organises for a surprised Robert Llewellyn (who plays Kryten in Red Dwarf), including a mariachi band and a Tina Turner impersonator, to unveil a blue plaque he’s had made for a house that Robert used to live in. There’s some footage online that one of the people in the crowd shot as well, albeit with poor sound. Ross then does the same for Alan Carr, who isn’t there but Ross meets him in London and has him pretend to meet the councillor using green screen editing. And he has plaques made for some other random celebrities too. Then finally he generously meets a fan who was injured when trying to come and see him.
Incidentally, back in 2010 Ross had also appeared on Robert’s Carpool chat show on Dave. It was included as a bonus feature on Ross’ Things DVD, and you can also see Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview on his Youtube channel.
- Episode 4 – Having been in Northampton, Ross now goes to see if Southampton is any better, though he takes a detour to the Isle of Wight first, to deliver some carnations to an old lady. While there he meets a mod called Joe, and they both return to the mainland, where Ross helps Joe pretend to be invisible as if he’s in the Harry Potter films, before they play lots of games of Rock Paper Scissors with some rockers. Ross then heads to Crawley, where he helps to motivate a group of unemployed people who are on a job skills course, and finds brief work experience roles for a couple of ladies, including filming with a camera, doing window cleaning, handing out leaflets, busking and selling items in a shop. He also popped into Lush, as filmed by a passer-by, but that didn’t make it into the show. He then discovers a table for sale that is decorated with images of Marilyn Monroe, which he instantly recognises is ideal for a suite themed around her in the B&B from Episode 2. But as he can’t go all the way back there again, he gets mod Joe and his partner to deliver it instead, and sends one of his cameramen with them to document it, and they get an extensive tour of the place. Meanwhile, Ross brings in a lady from the jobs course to fill the gap that’s left in his camera team, and gives another woman a chance to be a TV presenter, as they make a fake property show at someone’s house.
- Episode 5 – In theory, this should be one of the best episodes of TV ever made, because Ross asks his followers to tell him what there isn’t enough of on TV, so he can fulfil their dreams. And it’s certainly fun. To begin with he arranges for face masks to be made of various people, as a result of which he plays a game using masks of the Chuckle Brothers at the Guide Dogs training school in Royal Leamington Spa (where he also gets a wonderful tour), gets lots of people to go around town wearing Chris de Burgh masks, and surprises a member of the public (nominated by a friend) with masks of their face. Another big mission is finding a man who is willing to do the splits and lower his testicles over a live crab, although Ross soon discovers that the most amusement comes from the health and safety aspects of planning such a stunt, and working out how many times they can say “balls” or “testicles” before the watershed! And then apart from all that, he also observes Bonobo apes riding each other at Twycross Zoo, watches a group salsa dance, films lingering shots of a cheese sandwich, gets two ladies to arm wrestle on a car bonnet, talks with a guy from Mind about mental health interspersed with Benny Hill style chases, has a go at taxidermy, mimics Evel Knievel by jumping his motorbike over toy buses, gets a couple of guys to do some baguette jousting on their pushbikes, and plays potato-based games in the street with Marcus Brigstocke, before finally getting into a box at Land’s End.
- Episode 6 – Ross starts this final episode by seeing how far his bike will get from Land’s End without refuelling, and ends up meeting a woman who has broken down. So he keeps her company until the repair van comes, exploring the boot of her car before she gives him a couple of psychological tests. Then he goes to Wales, where he searches Aberystwyth for an ABBA wristwatch, while also trying to film a documentary-style entrance to the tourist office and attempting to say phrases in Welsh to several bemused locals. Ross is then asked by a follower up north to deliver some Panini football stickers to their young nephew down south. But as he can’t be bothered to go all that way, he has the great idea of using people he’s met from across the series. So the stickers are picked up by a Scottish warrior from the film, beginning a chain of deliveries as they’re passed to the dragon lady, Marlon and mod Joe, the latter delivering them to the child, who Ross talks to while waiting for the gift to arrive. It’s a lovely way of bringing the series to an end – until Ross gets in trouble with one of the neighbours who doesn’t take kindly to them filming outside her house, and trying to explain what’s going on doesn’t really help! So it’s not the uplifting ending Ross wanted, but he’s happy to return to the house with Joe and the kid to sort out the stickers. And there’s a nice closing montage of photos tweeted by several people he met during the series.
Off Road
This 3-part series from 2017, each episode 1 hour long (with adverts), was also shown on Dave, and is still available to stream on U at the time of writing.
It focuses on Ross’ other big passion aside from comedy, which is biking. As his obsession has grown over many years, he’s attempted more and more extreme events, such as Dawn To Dusk, Britain’s longest and toughest off road motorcycle race. You can see a documentary about him participating in that on his Youtube channel for free or in the extra features on his Australian Trip DVD.
For this series on Dave, therefore, we follow Ross as he attempts the Scottish Six Days Trial, a gruelling motorbike challenge that takes place mostly off road, and is regarded by many as the most technically difficult in the world.
It’s a test of skill and endurance rather than a race, where riders have to pass through hazardous and complicated sections that are rocky, slippery, steep, etc, without stepping off the bike. Letting your feet touch the floor, falling off the bike, walking your bike through parts of a section, or not finishing a section at all racks up penalty points. Making the off road journey between the sections is also a challenge in itself, with bogs, hills and highly variable terrain. Plus there’s a time limit each day within which all of the sections have to be completed, otherwise you’re out, and if something breaks on your bike, you have to repair it yourself within 20 minutes if you don’t want to be disqualified.
So clearly it’s got to be taken very seriously, and Ross does so. There’s still a lot of his excellent humour throughout the series, but he’s also very frank about how difficult it was, because he struggled with it a lot more than he expected to. He hadn’t had enough training, as he just fitted it in when he could while on his stand-up tour, and during the event he got very frustrated and tired – as did his instructor and pace setter James Burroughs who was riding with him for support.
It’s very unusual not to see Ross as his upbeat self, so we do see a very different side of him here sometimes, because the event is so mentally and physically draining. He is only human after all. But even so, it is still a fun and light-hearted series, and it’s really interesting to see him tackle the trial.
Stairway To Devon
This enjoyable 50-minute feature from 2016 is available on Ross’ Youtube channel for free, and sees him being taken on an off road tour of Devon’s countryside by motorcycle adventurer Austin Vince. They have brilliant chemistry and are very funny together, so there are lots of laughs alongside some interesting historical trivia. There are also stunning scenic views along the way, including a lot of incredible drone shots.
Particular points of interest during the tour include Scraesdon Fort (where they try to climb over the wall and explore some tunnels), the Miniature Pony Centre that has since closed (where Ross and Austin conduct an experiment with rice pudding on their faces), and an abandoned railway station (where they stay overnight and Ross scares Austin with a model of a pheasant). So there’s plenty to enjoy here, it’s very interesting as well as amusing.
The Unnatural History Show
This spoof natural history series on Youtube from 2021 consists of 6 short episodes lasting 35 minutes in total. Here Ross is joined by an alien professor called Shania Coddle (played by Vivienne Perry), a depressed robot camera assistant called Filmbot (Michael Shanks), and unwitting volunteer Grud Grudson (Mike Cowap), as they await the hatching of the elusive and highly dangerous Ferrototo Worm. It’s a fun bit of nonsense that builds to a dramatic conclusion.
Radio 4 Series
Finally, over on Audible, there are a couple of radio shows available featuring Ross that I’ve tried listening to for the first time. They are occasionally repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra as well.
Ross Noble Goes Global
In Series 1 & Series 2 of this travelogue-style show from 2002 & 2003, with 9 half-hour episodes in total, Ross explores different places that he visits around the world during his stand-up tours.
So there’s a mixture of stage routines and his random local observations, as he watches pensioners exercising in Shanghai, meets a whale cryer in South Africa, is taught how to play the penny whistle in Ireland, learns about the Japanese invasion of Singapore during World War II, finds a lot of Tintin merchandise and chocolate in Brussels, is mistaken for a spy by some drunk people in Adelaide, performs by firelight in a Bedoin tent in the Egyptian desert, and sees a lot of scaffolding on Milan’s impressive buildings, among many other things. I think it would have worked better as a TV show really, like his Australian Trip, so you can see and appreciate everything he’s talking about, but it’s still good.
Britain In Bits
This is a very amusing series from 2018 discussing completely fictional and nonsensical topics in the style of a real magazine programme.
In each of the 4 half-hour episodes, Ross interviews a genuine celebrity about things that are completely made up. So Fern Britton explains how she came to hypnotise pastry at a charity event for kids with a rare tongue condition, Lesley Joseph recalls playing with a holographic projector and an incident in Colombia, Nick Knowles tells us about a secret BBC tunnel, and it turns out Kirsty Wark likes to sleep in the BBC studio Ross is using. And they’re all there to promote something imaginary as well, including Fern’s new documentary about fighting with animals, Lesley’s live show about her life on ice, Nick’s charity challenge to present a live TV show for a month, and Kirsty’s memoir about going on tour with Aerosmith.
Interspersed with all of that are various reports by other correspondents about a prequel to Les Misérables, a man’s unusual pregnancy, how to protect yourself from pickpockets, old adverts, looking after the Royal Corgis, new gimmicks for ice cream vans, historic legal loopholes, the dark side of charity shops, a festival celebrating a crazy monk, a protest singer who sings to his fish, a celebration of brass, a terrible taxidermist, and dangerous toads on Salisbury Plain. One of the contributors in these segments is Emma Sidi, who at the time of writing is currently starring as one of the contestants in the 18th series of Taskmaster on Channel 4.
So while it’s only a short series, it is enjoyably silly, and the famous faces are good sports for getting involved.
Other Audio Titles
- Also on Audible you can find a free podcast, where Ross is joined by Australian comedian Ed Kavalee and other guests. There were 37 episodes released between May 2020 and August 2021, so it was clearly a lockdown time-filler, followed by a bonus 6 episodes giving commentary on the Royal Coronation in 2023. I’ve listened to a little bit out of curiosity, and it’s ok, but it doesn’t sound like it would hold my interest, and I’m not bothered about listening to it in full as there’s so much of it.
- Over on Youtube, meanwhile, a user has uploaded Series 1 & Series 2 of a radio show hosted by Ross with Terri Psiakis on Australian station Triple J (and it’s also available in MP3 format). Each series ran for a fortnight in the summers of 2005 & 2006, and while I’ve only listened to a little bit of it, as I haven’t got time to go through it all, they do have good banter together. And it was clearly popular given that they were invited back for the second series. The audio for the very first episode is corrupted from 17 minutes in unfortunately, but the rest are believed to be fine.
- Finally, back on Audible, there is also 4 At The Store, featuring 11½ hours of material from a stand-up comedy series on Radio 4, in which Ross presented Series 4 & 5. There are some great names in here, and I may get it at some point in the future, but it’s not something I need to buy and review for this post.
Conclusion
So that’s it, that concludes my Ross Noble marathon, with lots of random delights featuring his delightfully random ramblings.
As I said at the start, you can check out my playlist as well, which features lots of clips from his stand-up routines and other things I’ve mentioned above, as well as a myriad of other bits and pieces I haven’t written about, including his appearances on shows like QI in the UK, and the Australian versions of The Celebrity Apprentice and Would I Lie To You?, plus several interviews, and more besides. As with these posts, there will of course things I’ve missed out, but it’s a nicely varied and comprehensive selection of around 450 clips, that’s more than enough!
Ultimately, there’s no other comedian like Ross Noble, he’s very much one of a kind, and I mean that in a very complimentary way, it’s incredible the bizarre way his mind works. It’s been a lot of fun digging through so much of his stuff, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my reviews as well!
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