FTA-TV Ross Nobel

[Sloth]

Did anyone else hear that comedian Ross Nobel's house burnt down in the bushfires? I didn't see a single thing about it in the local press, I found out in an article about it on the UK's Daily telegraph website.

 

[cammo84]

Shit, that's bad news for the guy. Funniest comedian I have ever seen. I went to one of his shows, it was meant to be 90 minutes but went for 2.5 hours just because he couldn't stop talking. It's a good thing that he was overseas at the time and he only lives there part-time.

 

[likka]

Hope he was smart enough to ensure it.

 

[Karbo]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...-my-family-survived-the-Australian-fires.html

Ross Noble has made a name for himself the world over as the bloke who never puts a sock in it, the cheeky Geordie chappy so blessed with the gift of the gab, he could talk the hind-legs off a stampeding herd of donkeys, should the need suddenly arise.

In the 10 years since he launched himself as a fully-fledged wunderkind at the Edinburgh festival, aged just 23, he has refined his knack for waggish garrulousness, turning it into a spellbinding art-form. Where most other stand-ups tend to trot out pre-rehearsed patter, Noble can rustle up a different set every night, thinking on his feet, day-dreaming aloud.

And yet in broaching the subject of Australia's recent bush fires, a horrific episode that he and his young family were directly caught up in, Noble keeps trailing off, groping for the right way to put things, at a loss for words. "It's hard to describe it," he keeps saying. "It's very difficult to come to terms with."

When we meet, in the foyer of an unflashy chain-hotel in Brighton at the start of his new UK tour, he indicates that this, for the next four months or so, won't just be a way of life, it will be the only place he can call home. His 100-acre farm, 20 miles outside Melbourne, which he bought with his Aussie wife Fran five years ago, was reduced to cinders after fires swept through his local town, St Andrews, on Saturday 7 February.

Everything the couple owned in England had been shipped there. Everything was lost, apart from his horses and cows, which somehow managed to take refuge. The devastation of all his worldly possessions, though, including his beloved collections of rare comedy paraphernalia and vintage motor-bikes, was as nothing besides what could have happened that day, he reveals. Although he was away from home at the time, doing a warm-up gig, Fran and their four-month-old baby, Elf, came perilously close to the eye of the firestorm.

"She went back to get the baby's medicine and got out at the last minute,' he says. "The fire was at the top of the street by that time. If it had been five minutes either way that would have been it. It was a pure fluke she made it. Everyone"s being saying: "I can't imagine what it must be like to lose your house and everything you own". I'm not saying it's not traumatic but compared to what happened out there, we dodged a bullet like you wouldn't believe. I'm not sure people here have a real idea of the scale of it. They're saying the destruction was 60 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. A whole area has just gone, whole communities completely wiped out." Neighbours, friends? He nods. "For us, it's as if there was a massive car-crash and we happened to lose a shoe."

He's anxious to avoid being seen as peddling a sob-story. It's those left destitute or bereaved that warrant our concern and sympathy, he insists. You might imagine that his new show - Things - would reflect his harrowing recent experiences but you'd barely know he'd been through any kind of trauma. On stage, he's as breezy and impish as ever - alluding only in passing and in jest to his own misfortune. "Should your house burn down and you lose everything," he quips in that snuffly drawl of his, "my advice would be - don't turn to your wife and say: 'This means that technically I'm now sleeping with a homeless woman.' "

He can't help himself, once again, in conversation. Assessing the prospects of re-building his home - zero, in fact - he laughs: "Basically we've bought ourselves the biggest, most expensive ashtray anyone's ever owned. I suppose there's a defence mechanism that kicks in," he continues. "You can't laugh at the overall situation but you can make jokes about your personal circumstances. My father-in-law opened the paper and said: "I see the Pope has sent his best wishes.' I said: "Ask him if he can send us a generator instead."

Such a reflex raises valuable questions about the importance of comedy at a time of crisis - and whether it's always possible to look on the bright side. Didn't his sense of humour come close to breaking-point?

He pauses. "Yes. I've never had to deal with anything that horrific. It was the first time in my life when the idea of having a laugh seemed unjustifiable." While the tour has gone ahead as planned, he's acutely aware we might never have heard from him again, if fortune hadn't favoured his nearest and dearest. "I realise I would have had to give up stand-up. I can't see how I could ever have gone back on stage. Even if I had somehow dealt with it emotionally, from an audience's point of view, it wouldn"t be right. You don't like to think these thoughts but I would have lost everything including the thing I love doing the most which is going on stage and living in that beautiful space inside my own head."

What does he think about the possibility that all that damage was caused by arsonists?

"I'm quite liberal in my views and I would always be the first person to say "Let the authorities do their thing", but as much as I think that whoever did this is clearly mentally ill, I'd be in the front of the queue with a pick-axe. That's how strongly I feel about it." No jokes there, then.

We must count our lucky stars Noble is back in England and still joshing with us. He has found it odd adjusting to the doom and gloom of Credit Crunch Britain: "To get off the plane and find everyone saying 'We're screwed' is bizarre when you've come from hell on earth with people who have nothing left." Although he can't flesh out any plans beyond the tour and an autumn season in the West End, his passion for Australia - and its abundant optimism - remains undimmed. He recalls the life he had until only a few weeks ago: "Something I never took for granted was sitting there reading the paper and seeing kangaroos bounce past and parrots in the trees. It looked like paradise in the brochures that Jehovah's Witnesses hand out. A bit like heaven - only without the dying." He realises what he's just said and smiles a sheepish, sad smile.

 

[Ruddeger07]

It looks as though fire is following him

• »Peterborough Broadway Theatre Show Cancelled Unfortunately due to a fire at the Peterborough Broadway the show on the 8th April 09 has been cancelled. All customers who have bought a ticket should contact the theatre for a refund.

• 
  

http://www.rossnoble.co.uk/index_main.html

 

[alfy!]

I saw something about him and fires on The Age website this morning.

 

[Ochre]

i heard him on hamish and andy the other week talking about the bushfires, but i dont remembering him mentioning losing his house

 

[Warsaw]

Devestating. Absoulutely adore the guy and probably in my favourite top 5 comedians.