Hilarious Englishman Ross Noble is gracing our shores again this March and April on his new tour, 'Mindblender'.
The tour runs from March 12 – April 20 and marks 21 years in the comedy industry for Noble, who says his inspiration shows no sign of running out.
“Because I do so much with the audience, there's always new people and new things to talk about so it's all good.”
No stranger to our home that's girt by sea (he's practically an honorary Aussie), Noble has his own unique love of the Down Under touring experience. “I think it's just how relaxed it is, you know. There's the audience, obviously, but when you tour the UK and you drive up the motorways, they've got embankments up the side so you don't really see that much. Whereas here, you can drive through deserts and tropical areas and it's just a real pleasure.”
There will be ample roadside scenery to satisfy the retinas of Ross this time around, as this particular tour sprawls a wide variety of venues in towns all over Australia. “The great thing about this tour which I'm loving is we're doing this mixture of playing the huge arenas and then at the same time playing smaller regional towns as well so, yeah, it's the perfect mix.”
The name 'Mindblender' is fitting; in true Noble fashion the show is full of nonsensical genius that shows off his mastery of the abstract, his never ending imagination and love of spontaneity.
“I don't really write a show. I don't come up with a show that's got a topic — it's basically just what's in my head. So I thought rather than call it something that's like, 'Here is a show about this thing', the show is just about basically taking what's in my head and blending it up and pouring it out into a show, hence [the name] 'Mindblender'.”
Always one to tackle the absurd, Ross recently made his film debut as a psychotic zombie clown in the horror-comedy 'Stitches'. A self-professed fan of creature films, Noble says he jumped at the chance to step into the darkly hilarious role.
“When I read the script it basically had everything in it that I wanted to do in a film. As I said to the director, 'you had me at knife in the face' … When I read it, I looked at the script and just went 'wow, so he gets a knife through his head and then he falls into a dishwasher and dies at the start and then he's coming back with half his face missing and getting to do all these murders and stuff', it just looked like so much fun. And then I did it and it was brilliant.”
Seeing a comedian perform the role of a clown who gets accidentally killed by his unwilling child audience and then makes a deal to exact bloody revenge on their small bodies so he can come back to life, one has to wonder if the role spoke to any past grudges.
“I've had one or two audiences where I've gone 'eh', but never to the point where I've donned clown pants and wanted to remove their internal organs.”
I suppose that's a comforting notion for anybody going along to the 'Mindblender' shows, but don't think you're getting off easy, Ross Noble hates a dull audience.
“Don't come to one of my shows and think that it's just like going to see a play or a movie where you just sit there passively and just watch it. I want people to really feel like they're part of something … Just come along and, not put your feet up because that would be on the back of someone else's head, but just come along and just expect a really fun, live night out.”
Ross Noble and his new show 'Mindblender' are at The Brisbane Entertainment Centre Saturday April 13.