THE comedian Ross Noble is doing one of his very favourite things - putting his feet up in front of the telly after a frantic few months.

A successful national tour of Sonic Waffle was followed by a new show, Unrealtime, which played to sell-out audiences for a month in both Edinburgh and the London West End.

Now he is relaxing at home before going out on the road round the country with the new show.

"This is the first time I've had a sustained period at home for ages, and I'm loving it," beams Ross.

"I've got the full Sky package, and I've been watching loads of documentaries about Black History Month."

He has also been able to get round to all those little tasks that have been nagging away at him for months.

"I've sorted all that stuff that gets pinned to the notice-board," he reveals. "I've cleared my speeding fines and put the bins out. The neighbours are happy now that there aren't piles of rubbish outside the house.

"Also, I've finally done all my washing. When I'm gigging, I put a bag of clothes by the washing-machine and say, 'I'll wash that tomorrow'. But in reality it stays there for the next six months, and the room turns into an old bag storage centre. Sometimes I open the bags and say, 'oh yes, that's how people used to dress in 2002."

Ross has earned this down-time at home because he has been working his socks off for the past few years building up a reputation as one of the finest live acts in the country. He may be a star of both television (Have I Got News For You, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and Johnny Vaughan Tonight) and radio (Ross Noble Goes Global and Just a Minute), but it is as a stand-up that he truly thrives. Critics have been queuing up to lavish praise on Ross, who - rather sickeningly - is still only 27.

What distinguishes Ross, a thoroughly likeable Geordie with a trademark mop of unruly dark curls, is the freshness of his material. Never one to rest on his laurels, he is constantly updating the act.

"I regularly say to myself, 'I'm bored of that now' and chuck everything away. New bits come in all the time - and that makes it more fun.

"Just before Edinburgh this year, I said, 'Everything's going', and started again from scratch. It's quite easy to begin from nothing because then you can go anywhere you like."

The resultant show, Unrealtime, has proved characteristically inspired.

But Ross is also the best in the business at improvising material. His off the cuff flights of fancy are worth the price of admission alone. I have seen him make up dazzling routines on the spot about the fact that, say, someone in the front row works for the refugee council. Indeed, he can spin an entire show off the top of his head from one random piece of information.

"I can be inspired by something as simple as seeing a new and exciting breakfast cereal, and it just develops from there," Ross enthuses.

The fact that Ross never writes down any of his routines in full makes his ability as a stand-up all the more remarkable. He believes that scripting too much stifles the spontaneity which is his forte.

"I've got quite a lot of envelopes with a few words scribbled on the back," Ross chuckles. ''Rather than script a two-hour show, I'll just write down a couple of key words and go from there.

"That's all I need. If you try to work things out beforehand, they become too solid in your head. You're thinking of the next thing before you've even finished what you're saying. Then, it's not living, it's captured and it exists somewhere else.

"If you script things, as you're performing them you'll think of a better way of saying it and have to go back and change the script. I can't bear the hassle of going to the word processor. As a stand-up, you need to capture the essence rather than the words. The idea is what's important - the words can come in any order.'' But relying so heavily on off-the-cuff inspiration, isn't the comedian anxious about 'drying' on stage?

"I find that concept impossible," Ross reflects. "It's like saying to a guitarist, 'Are you worried that you'll run out of notes?' What happens if you play the odd dodgy note? You make sure that the next five are the best you've ever played. Words and notes are exactly the same. Sometimes it's like Hendrix playing the guitar behind his head, and sometimes it's like knocking out three chords.

"Because I improvise a lot, there's always an element of danger in my act. People think, 'What if it goes horribly wrong?' But that's the way my brain works. In a conversation at a party, I don't think, 'Oh God, what if I've got nothing to say?' I say, 'Nice shoes', and go from there."

Thanks to his popularity as a live performer, Ross is inundated with offers of TV vehicles, but he remains wary of being over-exposed.

"A lot of people do stand-up just so that they can go on to other things. But the more you do that, the more distracted you get. Also, some people on TV are despised. People are happy to have them pumped into their living room, but wouldn't dream of seeing them live.

"If you do too much TV, people don't necessarily draw a distinction between a quality entertainer who's spent years developing a live show and someone who last week was working on a market-stall.

"In the past, it was 'Wow! He's on telly.' Now, with the rise of Reality TV, anyone can be on it. I'm not anti-telly - I love telly - it's just not the holy grail it used to be. It's not necessarily a mark of quality any more."

But the great thing about Ross is that even after such a successful couple of years in the live arena, his passion for stand-up shows no sign of waning.

"I'm not losing my enthusiasm - far from it. I just enjoy it more and more. After doing a West End show, it would be easy to say. 'Everyone loves it, everything is tickety-boo.' But the better a show gets, the more places I can see where I want to take it. There are always new things to do. I'm always setting the bar higher."

So has Ross achieved all that he wants to?

"Quite the reverse," he laughs. "I haven't even scratched the surface yet. If you ask me the same question in 50 years' time, I'll say, 'I'm just starting to scratch the surface now'."


Check out the Ross Noble wesite for live dates.

www.rossnoble.co.uk