Early years Noble is originally from
Cramlington,
Northumberland, England. "The ultimate place to live" helped him with his career—he found little to do in his hometown so he became particularly imaginative. At the age of 11, it was discovered that he was
dyslexic. Because of this, Noble decided to work within a career which did not rely on academic skills. He had a brief stint as a street juggler with a friend, and aspired to join a circus. He joined a clown troupe and sold balloons as a stilt-walker, before deciding to become a comedian after winning tickets to a comedy show. As a teenager, Ross was a member of the youth theatre at the
People's Theatre in
Heaton, Newcastle. In 1997, he was doing warm-ups at the BBC for
Friday Night Armistice. One of his earliest on-screen appearances was on
Richard Whiteley's regional chatshow for
Yorkshire Television in 1996. Noble has been performing stand-up since the dyslexia diagnosis, and appeared in his local comedy club at the age of 15, despite licensing laws that prohibited him working there and forced him to leave through the kitchen.
Stand-up career Since starting as a stand-up comedian, Noble has won many awards, including a
Time Out award winner in 2000 for his
Edinburgh Fringe Festival show
Chickenmaster, and a
Perrier Award nomination in 1999 for another Edinburgh show
Laser Boy. He has since achieved great popularity in both the UK and Australia, where he has toured extensively every year since 2001. Noble's 2003 show
Unrealtime was the best-selling show at the Edinburgh Fringe, before transferring to London's
West End for a monthlong season at the
Garrick Theatre where it played to packed houses. A recording of this tour was shown on
BBC Two in 2004, and a double-DVD set was released later that year. During 2004, Noble performed at the
Edinburgh Fringe and the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival and other venues with his show
Noodlemeister. His 2005 UK tour,
Randomist, ran from September to December, of which he continued in Australia during 2006. In April 2006, Noble was involved in a
motorbike accident, and both fractured and dislocated his collarbone. Conveniently, he crashed right outside a hospital. Noble performed his shows over the following weeks with his arm in a sling. During his 'Things' tour, in
Bristol on 1 March 2009, he claimed that before the ambulance officers would help him, he was forced to do his
Stephen Hawking impression. While performing in Edinburgh in September 2006 for his
Fizzy Logic tour, a fight broke out during the gig, caused by a drunken member of the audience arguing with another. Also, in his Edinburgh gig, some one gave him a basket of mini-muffins with faces printed on them; this is related to a sketch from Noble's DVD
Sonic Waffle, in which he mentions his hobby of finding faces in muffins. At another gig, he found someone filming the show on their
mobile phone and confiscated the phone. He then recorded a video on it himself. After finding that several people recorded his finale skit, "The falling owl stunt", Noble encouraged the entire audience to record the stunt simultaneously and post them on
YouTube, in an attempt to achieve, "The largest number of videos showing exactly the same thing." He then took his tour to Australia in February 2007, during which he filmed a documentary about his travels around the country. In 2007, Noble finished his
Nobleism tour in the UK with a show in
Liverpool on 21 October 2007 which was screened live to 43
Vue cinemas. If the event had sold out, he would have played to over 10,000 people. Upon walking offstage, Noble enquired if the broadcast had succeeded and was informed by a technician that "it worked perfectly... but we lost Aberdeen". To this day, Noble maintains that this is the "coolest thing anyone has ever said" to him. Noble likes to have spontaneous material related to each specific show, and therefore encourages
heckling and has increasingly indulged in the audience giving him gifts during shows. At a gig at the
Edinburgh Playhouse during Noble's 2005
Randomist tour, a member of the audience put his feet up on the stage, and later removed his shoes and put them on the stage instead. It is now traditional for the entire front row of an Edinburgh audience to place their shoes upon the stage during the interval, which causes Noble much amusement when he returns. Noble performed at the 2008
Latitude Festival and rounded off his set by leading everyone in the tent in a huge
conga line (which quickly turned into a stampede) to a
vegan food stand so they could all ask for pies and sausage rolls. The DVD of his show
Nobleism was released in November 2009.
TV and radio In 2012, Noble made his film debut in the fantasy comedy horror movie
Stitches playing the titular character, an undead birthday clown out for revenge.
Guest appearances Noble had not done any acting work on TV until the summer of 2013 when he appeared opposite
Ian Smith as a gay lover in the Australian TV series "It's a date", or radio, as he prefers stand-up for giving him the freedom to say what he wants without being influenced by a script or crew. Noble has also made 16 appearances, the highest number of appearances of any guest, on BBC One's
Have I Got News for You including the first show guest presented by
Paul Merton. His most memorable appearance on the show saw him and
Paul Merton answer all their questions wrong, and getting no points in the entire show. He was Paul Merton's guest on
Room 101, where he wanted to consign to history the likes of
Craig David, cartoon animals who wear clothes, people who look like cats,
clipboards and
Christian rock music. He makes regular contributions to
BBC Radio 4's
Just a Minute and has also appeared on ''
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and presented 4 At The Store. In July 2007, Ross featured, as part of his "In The Company Of...", on the Colin Murray show on BBC Radio 1, and in August 2007 Noble appeared on Steve Wright in the Afternoon'' on
BBC Radio 2. the
ABC's
The Glasshouse, as well as
Triple M radio show
Get This, regular appearances on
Triple J. In Ireland, he appeared on the first series of
Tubridy Tonight, where he went over to a prop bookcase to inspect if the books were real. Upon reading one book, he found a photo of
Mike Yarwood on one page, which he cut out and wore as a mask for a portion of the interview. Since 2010, he has made eighteen guest appearances on British comedy panel show
QI. In July 2011, Ross appeared in the second episode of the
17th series of
Top Gear. On the show, he revealed that he currently owns earth moving machines as well as an
Abbott 433 self-propelled gun, which he calls his "Tank". He did a lap around the Top Gear track in 1.43.5, beating
Tom Cruise and placing him in second place behind
John Bishop. He later appeared in April 2017 in the sixth episode of
series 24, achieving a lap around the track in 1:37.5. In 2012, he was a regular panellist on
That Sunday Night Show on
ITV. In April 2012, he featured on Triple J for a day where he co-hosted some shows, and played an imaginative game of
Cluedo, where they found people from around Melbourne that matched the Cluedo characters names to come into the studio and play. Appears briefly in
TT3D: Closer to the Edge in conversation with Richard 'Milky' Quayle.
Hosted series Besides making various guest appearances, Noble has been the host of an Australian radio show, and the subject of two BBC radio series. Noble's worldwide travels as a stand-up were the subject of his own BBC Radio 4 series
Ross Noble Goes Global, produced by
Danny Wallace. This series, recorded between April and May 2001, saw him recording his observations as he travelled around various countries. In January 2005, Noble joined Australian
comedian Terri Psiakis in co-hosting
Ross and Terri, the weekday lunch shift on national radio station
Triple J. Following on from
Ross Noble Goes Global, Radio 4 broadcast a new series called
Ross Noble On... during January to February 2007. The 4-episode series followed his 2006 UK tour, featuring performances in
Brighton,
York,
Manchester and
Newcastle. All of the Radio 4 programmes have since been released as BBC audio CDs. Noble once again teamed up with Terri Psiakis on Triple J for two weeks of
Ross and Terri in January 2006. This second period on Triple J also saw Ross and Terri founding "Pants Across Australia", during which, 4 pairs of trousers were sent to the north, south, east and west extremities of Australia and then back to Melbourne.
Ross and Terri did not return to this slot in 2007, however Terri Psiakis and Amy Blackmur (the pair's producer from their 2006 show) did present a limited run of shows during a similar time frame earlier in the year, under the working title "T 'n' A" ("Terri and Amy"). As well as this, Terri and Amy decided to continue in the evening slot of 6pm – 10pm. He finished as the runner-up of the series, raising over $100,000 for his charity, the
Australian Red Cross - Disaster Response and Recovery Fund.
Theatre Noble made his musical theatre debut as
Franz Liebkind in the 2015 UK tour of
Mel Brooks' The Producers from May to July 2015. In September 2017, he played
Igor in another Mel Brooks musical
Young Frankenstein at the
Garrick Theatre in
London's West End (following a tryout at the
Theatre Royal, Newcastle) before leaving in February 2018 due to his Australian stand-up tour. Noble received a
WhatsOnStage Award for his performance and was nominated for the
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical. During his time in the show, he and co-star
Hadley Fraser did a recording called "Poddin' On The Ritz" to discuss behind-the-scenes at the show and
musical theatre. ==Personal life==