Simon Harper meets randomist comedian Ross Noble
"It would be like somebody with a liquidiser head, pouring topics into the brain, liquidising them up, and then spraying them all over the stage in a kind of metaphorical, humorous mural.
"Or you could just say it's some daft hairy bastard talking bollocks. Or a child with attention deficit disorder on fizzy pop."
In a time dominated by cynical marketing and carefully planned spin, Ross Noble certainly isn't guilty of trying too hard. The big-haired Geordie comedian is attempting to describe his act in a way that would have PR executives convulsing with unbridled fear.
Noble is preparing for his extensive UK tour, the rather aptly named 'Randomist' show, which sees him take to the stage for two nights at Birmingham's Alexandra Theatre, as well as four appearances at Warwick Arts Centre.
The Northumberland-born funnyman, who has been performing since the age of 15, has forged a reputation as an engagingly whimsical stand-up - he admits to having a tendency to veer off on tangents during his largely improvised routines, riffing on subjects such as spotting celebrities' faces in blueberry muffins and the practicalities of gluing a sirloin steak to your forehead.
"When I first started I was trying to be superslick," he admits. "I was trying to be like the comics that I'd seen on TV, which is great if you can do it, but it's not really me. I'm a bit more, well, random to be honest. It developed out of that thing of just being myself.
"It took a while to realise that the way to be yourself is to actually be yourself, and I know that sounds like a stupid thing, but it's like you try to find your voice. It's already there, you've just got to trust that it's worth pursuing.
"What I do is articulate everything that's going on in my head. But then I get distracted and stuff comes to me; I'm kind of interrupting myself. It's more like a conversation; it's actually communicating with people the way you normally do.
"If you turn up to a party you don't go up to somebody and say, 'Hello. Well, let me tell you about this...' That's naturally not the way that the head works. And I suppose I'm actually more comfortable on stage than I am off, because off stage there are rules about the way you behave."
Not surprisingly, given how relaxed he feels on the stage, Noble continues to have a rampant appetite for touring. The former Perrier Award nominee will journey around Britain until mid-December, before visiting Australia, where he is hugely popular. Clearly the prodigiously gifted comedian is happy with life on the road.
"I just love the fact that I can go all over the world and people will turn up and see the show. It blows my mind that that's the case," he gushes.
The 'Randomist' tour follows his three-week jaunt around the Highlands - bored with the Edinburgh Festival, he decided to venture to "misty, out of the way places", and it's a move which highlights that Noble, a regular panellist on Have I Got News For You and Just A Minute, is never one to take the conventional comedic route.
"I just couldn't be arsed doing the Edinburgh Festival. It was just getting bigger and bigger every year. I figured that people know pretty much what I do, and if I can get an audience in the Highlands, then I can just do that, because it'd be more fun. They were pleased that somebody turned up and made the effort."
Travelling has become a rich source of material for Noble, even leading to a Radio 4 series, entitled Ross Noble Goes Global. A succession of offbeat travelogues, the series followed the award-winning comic around locations such as Milan, Dublin and Shanghai,.
"Doing that show, the most bizarre thing was when I did a gig in a Bedouin tent in the middle of the desert, and the generator went out. We were in pitch darkness, and then the lights came up.
"The Bedouins didn't have any concept of what stand-up was, they just thought I was some bloke standing there, giving them a briefing on the ways of the desert.
"And a guy just walks up to me and offers me oranges, halfway through the show - that was pretty odd.
"I think the oddest thing happened up in Orkney. My tour manager and I were standing outside this shop. It sold your regular pick and mix, and on the other side it sold carpets.
" So it was like a carpet shop that had a pick and mix area, and then out of nowhere a small child - he must have been about four or five - walked out of the shop in full jockey's silks; the full riding gear. There was no horse around; there was no gymkhana or anything like that.
"We sat and discussed it for days; we were trying to work it out. Unless out the back they sold carpets, and they also sold sweets and jockey's silks for tiny children - who knows?
"It might have been a tiny jockey nipping in for some sweets on his way to the races. We'll never know."
