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Jamie Rowland - Sutton News.
It's always a bit of an event when Someone Who Has Been On The Telly comes to Sutton, and this was no exception. Half an hour before Ross Noble hits the tiny stage at The Station, the upstairs room is packed and buzzing and harassed promoters are darting about like Basil Fawlty on bad speed.
Seeing and hearing Ross on the telly and the radio, I've only found him moderately amusing; but a few minutes into his set, I realise that I've only ever seen a tiny fraction of what he's about. There's far more here than "Lee Hurst doing a Geordie accent in a wig," as a man next to me quips. Oh, and the swearing helps, Geordies being among the finest swearers in the land.
Given the time to stretch out, Ross shows himself to be an astonishingly skilled comedian. The stuff just pours out of him. He gives the impression of not breathing in for an hour at a time. The entire first half of the show feels almost entirely improvised, running on little more than instant inspiration.
Wielding the mic stand like a lecturer with the world's biggest pointer, he wrings an hilarious opening segment just from the room's fixtures and fittings, mercilessly victimising a security camera that points inexplicably at the ceiling.
The entire audience pretends, seemingly row by row, never to have heard of Linda Barker. Ross skewers us: "That was like a Mexican denial!"
An interjection from one of the gentlemen of the press (I won't name names, but I regretted it instantly) gets summarily slapped down without a break of stride. When I next take my head out of my hands, he's saying: "It'd be terrible if there was an ogre outside this window," which is an archetypal Ross Noble utterance if ever there was one.
A detour to the Highlands and Islands follows, where we learn that having to eat four stone of shortbread is an occupational hazard lurking in wait for any unwary touring comedian... and so it goes, the cumulative effect of wave after wave of hilarious extemporised drivel torturing most of the audience with unremitting mirth.
The only time he pauses is when several things occur to him at once: "Oh, I'll tell you about that in a minute." It's like a dam trying to burst, so much material that it's all fighting to get out at the same time. He needs two gobs, really.
The second half feels more crafted than the first, mostly made up of - I guess - material from Ross' forthcoming West End run. It's harder stuff, too; his tale of The Queen of Hearts Memorial Truck, competition winner at 'Truckfest', with its picture of Elton John and 'Goodbye English Rose' stencilling, made grown men wince. And laugh.
The comparison of an exposed female breast to 'a fleshy Paul McKenna' will lodge in my mind far longer than I want it to.
On the home straight he ever-so-tentatively rolls out some inoffensively daft stuff about birdwatching in burkas, lays in to Burberry caps and tracksuits, and he's off. Crowd goes wild.
I manage to have a brief word with the drained husk of a comic afterwards, and he's like a man being forced to take the Daz doorstep challenge in his pants. Diplomatically refusing to dish the dirt on his showbiz pals, he reveals that Nicholas Parsons, beneath that twinkling, gentlemanly veneer, 'is an absolute gentleman. The word Gentleman was created for him.'
Accounting for his willingness to play a small venue for (presumably) not much of a fee, he explains that he needs to be performing all the time: "If I go a few days without doing it, I've just got to," he says. "Mike Myers once said that he was a 'frisbee dog'.
"I'm a frisbee dog, too."
Pausing only to express no strong feelings about the sacking of Bobby Robson, he heads for the West End.
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Adam Smith Suttton Coldfield Observer
This week one of the hottest properties in British Comedy Ross Noble played a gig to an enthralled audience in the upstairs room in Sutton's Station pub. The Observer's Adam Smith was there to sample the atmosphere and chat to the comedian.
Long-haired joke-smith Ross Noble is used to playing huge venues and appearing with showbusiness' finest on Radio 4 but on Tuesday night he was happy to play the Station in Sutton. And there were no demands for rose petals in the dressing room or a bowl of blue m&ms to keep one of Britain's brightest comedy stars happy."I only asked for the usual, three bottles of water" the genial Northumbrian told the Observer."Usually I'd ask for a few towels to dry myself off at the end of a gig but the stage was so small I couldn't. All I had to do is step sideways and I'd fall off," he said. The Geordie comedian played the sold out gig whilst preparing for a run in the West End.And it was a chance meeting with the Station's resident comedian Karen Bayley in Edinburgh that opened the door for the comedy gig of the year in Sutton. As news leaked out about the special guest the avalanche of phone calls started and it was a case of baton down the hatches for the comedy clubunder siege. Promoter Mark Degenetais sighed with the weary resignation of a man who ordered a steak only to be given a cow. "It has been unbelievable, we have never experienced anything like this before," he said."Dealing with all the press and PR people along with everyone wanting tickets has been hard work but Ross is a great guy and it's great to have him here." The nervous excitement was evident everywhere with the technicians frantically trying to get the sound right for a performer who is used to the best equipment available. But the old pub's fixtures and fittings and the sound system that pipedthrough music from downstairs provided the Ross Noble with comedy material from heaven.Within seconds of arriving on stage he set about joking about the wiring, the old speakers, security cameras and the spotlight controller."Was this pub set up just to freak me out," the comedian said in jest.
Though he had material to practice for his forthcoming West End run his improvisation was wonderful and the first half of the marathon two and a half hour show was crammed full of off the cuff observations about Sutton and his surroundings. There was the mandatory, 'God it's posh around here' but the warm welcome he received from the audience meant the Royal Town remained unscathed duringhis act. And from the nurse in the front row who performs vasectomy to the lack of Muslim women's marching bands a myriad of subjects came into range of Noble's comedy Gatlin gun. But after the show the comedian explained that he enjoyed being in such an
intimate venue. "It is great to be so close to the audience," he said. "It meant I could take the mick out of several people as they were easier to see."In his own words watching Ross perform is 'a bit like looking at a child with attention deficiency disorder discovering a secret stash of Sunny Delight'.But as the laughter subsided and the cheers ended Ross reflected on his evening in the Station."I love performing anywhere and anyplace but when the audience and the atmosphere is as special as tonight it is a wonderful experience," he said.
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