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Previews | COMEDY

IMPROV STAND-UP ROSS NOBLE Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Fri 30 Sep; Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Fri 4 Nov

There are very few comedians in the world like Ross Noble. While he is now a more prominent voice on radio and face on TV, he built up a vast fanbase mainly on the back of relentless gigging and touring from the moment he arrived on our stages in the late 90s.

And perhaps more uniquely for a popular global comic, he pretty much makes the whole lot up on the spot. Risk could well be his middle name. ‘The “risk” is all relative,’ he insists. ‘It’s like driving a car; after 25 years you don’t get in a car and go, “what if this goes wrong?” If you hit a few bumps in the road you just think, “oh, this is fun, let’s bounce around for a bit!”’

His rather aptly titled new touring show,

Brain Dump, was born after a skip through an online search of critical reaction to his work. ‘I got it from a customer review on Amazon for one of my DVDs. They wrote, “this is just like a massive brain dump”, and I thought, “oh yeah, that’s exactly what my stuff is! I’ll have that”.’ As well as doing his freewheeling improv stand-up thing, Noble has veered into the world of genre movies, having debuted as a killer clown in Stitches. ‘I’ve just filmed another horror, and that’s a straight horror film; there are no laughs in it. It’s definitely easier for a stand-up to do straight acting than an actor to do comedy. It sounds mad because I was playing a killer clown, but in Stitches, I wanted to play it as truthfully as possible. I didn’t want people to go, “oh, that’s just Noble dressed as a clown”.’ (Brian Donaldson)

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W W W . T H E S T A N D . C O . U K

SCOTLAND’S LEGENDARY NEW COMEDY NIGHTS ONLY £3 Edinburgh: Mondays | Glasgow: Tuesdays

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1 Sep–3 Nov 2016 THE LIST 51