G’day, Ross, you a fan of ZOO?
ZOO! I used to get the er… the, y’know… I used to peruse the odd copy, every now and then, yes.

Sweet.
Very much so. Did you know Tony Martin [Aussie radio jock and comic] used to do a show called Get This, and ZOO would regularly make an appearance on there? And I would regularly go on the show and do, er... what do you call those fun facts? Do you still do those?

You mean Pub Ammo?
Yeah, Pub Ammo! He would often ask me about the Pub Ammo stuff.

Because you are the fount of all human knowledge?
Correct.
 
Wow, who knew? Your new live DVD Things is out now, and during the gig, people bring you a pineapple in the set break — is this normal?
Yeah. I’ve had many different gifts. It’s become a thing, y’know? People sort of... which is handy for the DVD title... bring all sorts of things. On one gig last year, which was quite odd, people just brought stuff along, y’know. There was one where people just brought a big... which is quite apt for ZOO magazine... a big bag of condoms. It’s a bit worrying, y’know, because it’s the sort of thing where obviously if it was from like a group of, y’know, sexy young lasses and that, you’d think that’s a very different message than if it’s just one man, on his own, with soup in his beard. I mean, what are you supposed to take from that?

Did you know this beardy gift-giver?
No, I didn’t. But at the end of the show, as a practical joke, I got the bag of condoms, and I got all these girls in the front row to walk past the merchandise guy who sells the T-shirts out front. One young lass at a time, I got them to put a condom down on the table, wink at him, and then just walk off. He’s there thinking, “F**king hell!” I got about ten girls in a row doing it, and then I got this big, fat bloke to go and do the same.

So which one did he go home with?
The fat guy. They’re still a couple. But, y’know, there was another thing where... do you know the show QI? 

Vaguely. Bit highbrow for us.
Well, I was on QI, and I did this joke about combining Toblerones and Rolos to make a brand new kind of Toblerone-Rolo combo hybrid.

A profound concept — why hasn’t someone thought of it before?
But that one joke led to, every night, fans leaving me Rolos taped to a Toblerone bar. And the whole tour, throughout my gigs, I’d hear the sound of blokes munching on Toblerones.

Is there a gift that you’d really like to recieve that you haven’t gotten yet? Like live animals or something?
I’ve gotta be careful, because people will bring it. My tour manager was going, “Can you do some more jokes about cocaine and prostitutes, please?”

When you did the stint on radio here, you decided to give something to your listeners, and sent trousers to all corners of the country. Er, why?
Well, it sort of developed. “Pants Across Australia” is what it was called. What happened was during the Christmas holidays, everyone goes away, which pretty much leaves comedy theatres unattended. So Triple J came to me and Terri Psiakis, and said, “Are you guys interested in doing a spot?” And I thought it was a brilliant idea! It was pretty much four hours a day of total freedom to do whatever we liked!

That sounds very dangerous.
So, we did no preparation before the show, and just turned up on the first day. And I’d cleared out a load of old clothes at home, so I just thought, because we were just on for two weeks as a muckabout show over the holidays, and because we didn’t have any T-shirts to give away, I’d just give away my old clothing to listeners instead.

That’s very charitable of you, Ross.
Then we decided to see if we could get four pairs of my trousers up to Sydney — because there was bound to be people travelling that way — so we sent the trousers off with someone. Then we sent another pair with someone on the ferry to Tasmania. The rule was that you weren’t allowed to take them on a plane — they had to travel over land. And it became “Pants Around Australia”, where people who were travelling met up with somebody else, and we relayed the pants right the way around Australia. A pair went east, a pair went west, a pair right up the centre, and a pair went to Tasmania... and then they all made it back for the final show.

What? Weren’t you worried they’d be soiled or someting?
No, but people had put badges and stuff on them. It was a really mad thing. Then we’d get live chickens in the studio, and we’d get the chickens to, y’know, peck my arse and stuff… 

Huh? Chickens? What?
… and we were getting people to try to crack eggs with their bum cheeks and stuff. It wasn’t your standard radio.

Okay. Um, moving on... You actually lived over here until 2009 when your house in Victoria was destroyed in the fires, along with everything you owned, and you’ve since moved back to the UK. On behalf of Australia, we’d like to assure you it was nothing personal. Why did you leave?
It sounds like I spat the dummy and went, “Well, I’m not having this.” And y’know, it was obviously not exactly sweetness and light at the time, because it was such a major thing. At first we were going to rebuild the house, but it was such a massively traumatic thing that we just decided we’d come back and spend a bit of time in the UK. We might be back, but we just needed a bit of distance and space.

While we’re cataloguing your misfortunes, you also crashed your motorbike outside a hospital. Ever been mugged next to an ATM?
Yeah, but that was years ago. You could say “misfortune”, or you could say “par for the course, really.” I’m always crashing bikes and flipping cars. F**k, yeah! But this one worked out brilliantly: I crashed the bike, someone said, “Do you want an ambulance?” and I went “Yes, please.” I didn’t have to ring one, I just got in the back and drove across the road. It was quite handy, really.

Jonathan Ross recently crashed his car while doing a lap on the test track for Top Gear. He was uninjured, but there was thousands of pounds worth of damage done to his hairstyle. On a scale of 1-10, how much sympathy do you feel?
Well, I think Jonathan Ross is one of those people who’s probably not thinking, “Oh God, I might die in this horrific car crash!” He’s probably thinking, “This’ll make great telly!” He’s no slouch. He knows the score.

You were voted the tenth greatest stand-up in 2007, and 11th greatest the next year. Any plans to take out the bloke who cut ahead of you?
Yeah, right, thanks very much. There’s no need to dwell on it.

Do you know who overtook you?
There’s a few of them, to be honest. But I think Ricky Gervais jumped from 11th up to fourth... so I think it was Ricky becoming one of the biggest comedians in the world that skewed the voting.

Yes, and all while doing very little stand-up, we might point out...
Exactly. The bastard...

... whereas you do 200 shows a year!
Yeah, exactly. I’m not bitter. Not at all. 

Your uncle Mickey is also a stand-up comedian. Is he a tad jealous that you’re famous and he’s... well, he’s just Ross Noble’s uncle Mickey?
Ha ha! Not at all, actually. He’s a very successful writer. I think he’s… I don’t know. He might secretly be trying to kill me... But that’s all good.

Legend has it that you became a stand-up after winning tickets to a comedy show. But what if you’d won tickets to a strip club instead?
I would’ve been a stripper. Definitely. No question about it. I’d have had the knockers put in, false jugs, and I’d be off.

You might even be in ZOO by now.
Indeed. In fact, I still have ambitions to be on the cover, y’know?

We’ll have a word to the boss.
If you could photoshop my head onto somebody with massive jugs, that’d be great. I’d quite like to be the first bloke on the cover of ZOO... just to see how much circulation dropped that week.

We think it’d go through the roof… of the office below us. Will you be back touring in Oz soon, mate?
I’ll be back next year, and I’ll be doing a proper big tour — I haven’t been to Western Australia in ages, so I really want to get back there, so I’ll be doing a full, big tour... and I’ll bring my bikini for the cover shot.

Ross Noble’s Things is out on DVD now


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