Ross Noble: ‘You don’t want to be in a relationship with a fan’

Ross Noble is a stand-up comedian, best known for being runner-up in The Celebrity Apprentice in 2021. The 45-year-old talks about knowing he was going to marry his wife the moment he met her, growing up amongst strong women, and how he keeps his marriage strong.

Ross Noble: “I don’t subscribe to the idea that men and women find different things funny.”

My maternal grandmother, Edith, was an extraordinary woman. She lived at the bottom of our street in Cramlington, Northumberland, and because Mum and Dad both worked, I went there after school.

She had a black-and-white TV and loved to watch snooker. She had this incredible ability to say which coloured balls were which, just by the shades of grey on the screen. She’d go: “He’s going to pot the green.” I’d say, “Which one, Gran?” And she’d say, “The one by the rail.” And sure enough, he’d pot it.

The women on my mother’s side are like cockroaches: they just don’t die. My Aunty Meg got up to 99, maybe 100. Growing up, there were a lot of very old women in my life.

My mum is very no-nonsense. She was a teacher, and because she’d spent years putting up with other people’s kids’ bullshit, she had zero tolerance for it. She told my older sister and me that medically kids couldn’t get headaches. If you said you had one, she’d say, “No, you haven’t.” You weren’t allowed to stay home from school unless you physically vomited in front of her, or you physically couldn’t move. Even then it was borderline.

“The women on my mother’s side are like cockroaches: they just don’t die.”

I’ve inherited Mum’s resilience and her commitment to things. Like when I was a kid and wanted to join the circus, I’d ride my unicycle before breakfast and juggle during school breaks. Then I’d come home and practise until it was dark. I have her “crack-on-and-do-it” mentality.

I had several relationships that didn’t go anywhere before I met my wife, Fran. I was so focused on work. I lived with this girl who was a sound technician on a breakfast TV show. I’d finish work at midnight and she started at 4am, so that one was doomed.

About a year later, I was in Melbourne doing comedy. I certainly wasn’t looking for any sort of relationship, but the minute I saw Fran I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. We spoke, and that night, I told my mate, who later became the best man at my wedding, that I thought I’d met the woman I was going to marry.

“The minute I saw Fran I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

Fran was funny and engaging and I thought, “Wow, I need this person in my life.” She had no idea I was a comic – I told her 30 minutes into our conversation. Even when she saw me perform, she was unimpressed. I found that attractive, too, because you don’t want to be in a relationship with a fan.

We were together for 10 days and then I had to go to New Zealand for three weeks. Then I was back in Melbourne for a day. I told Fran I didn’t want a long-distance relationship and asked her if she wanted to move to England and live with me. She said, “All right then” and moved three months later. That was 22 years ago.

The fact my wife swears like a trooper is hugely attractive. There’s also a toughness about her … oh no, this goes back to my mother, I’ve fallen into that old Freudian trap. Anyway, when she gave birth to our daughters, Elfie, 13, and Willow, 9, she had no painkillers; not even a suck of the gas. She did it through breathing, screaming, and swearing at me.

I keep the marriage strong by being away for long periods of time. When I’m gone, she has to do everything as if she were a single parent. But when I am home, I can be there 24/7 for weeks. It goes from one extreme to the other.

I don’t subscribe to the idea that men and women find different things funny. When big groups of blokes are together and they are all laughing, that’s when it all descends into being a bit shit. When women are removed from the equation, and men start going down a certain track, it’s not necessarily great.

Ross Noble’s On the Go tour runs nationally until July 23; rossnoble.com.

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