Ross Noble’s gigs sell out instantly. But this larger-than-life stand-up comedian couldn’t give up comedy even if he wanted to. Here he talks about the addictions of being on stage, before appearing at Oxford’s New Theatre tonight.

“I’M not a druggie person, but doing stand-up is like the best high you could possibly imagine – multiplied by several thousand,” Ross Noble says.

“Stand-up is simply addictive. You know that feeling where you make the woman at the supermarket check-out laugh, or you have your mates down the pub in stitches?

“In front of an audience of 2,000 people, you get that feeling over and over again.

“You can easily get hooked on it. If I haven’t done a gig for a while, I start hanging about in supermarkets trying to get laughs, and the woman at the checkout begins to think, ‘he’s lingering a bit, isn’t he?’ “They should have the equivalent of methadone clinics for comedians, where they can gradually wean us off that desperate urge to get a laugh all the time!”

Ross is an inspired performer, even when he’s not on stage. His mind just doesn’t work in the same way as the rest of us.

The 32-year-old views things through a comic prism - and that’s what makes him such a captivating stand-up.

Ross, who has built an immense live following without doing much telly at all, is also one of the world’s great improvisers.

Unlike most comics, he is far better when working without a script. The stand-up, who began performing at a local comedy club in the North East of England at the age of just 15, comments that, “doing stuff off the cuff is what I love.

“When I’m on stage, I’ll say exactly what pops into my head. You don’t want to force it - you just let it happen and it flows out of you naturally. It’s just about being there.”

Never more than a minute away from the next gag, Ross adds with a self-deprecating laugh: “Oh God, I’m starting to sound like the Dalai Lama now!”

The comedian certainly thrives on plucking material out of thin air. He is at his very best when he reacts to what’s in front of him, rather than sticking to some pre-ordained list of subjects.

“When I started out, I tried really hard to be what I thought a stand-up should be,” Ross recollects.

“For ages, I attempted to do a set act. I thought, ‘other comedians have a defined persona – maybe I should be like that.’ But the more I did that, the further it went away from what I wanted.

“It didn’t really click until I threw that away completely and said to myself, ‘stuff it! It’s just me and some people in a room - you don’t need anything else’.”

And having just been voted one of the top ten greatest stand-ups of all time by Channel 4 viewers, it’s obviously working.

Always ready to laugh at himself, Ross observes that while it works brilliantly in the theatre, his scattergun approach to conversation can be more of a hindrance in the rest of his life.

“Off stage, I can just drift off,” the comic admits. “It drives my wife mad because I’ll be saying something and will suddenly stop for no apparent reason.

“On stage, you show the workings. That’s why I think I’m a more effective human on stage than off it!”

Ross, who is happily married to an Australian and has a young child, now lives for six months of the year in a far-flung corner of Australia. Sadly, his home was destroyed in the recent bushfires that raged across that country. For all that, Ross adores the remoteness of life in his deserted patch of the Outback.

“In Britain, you’re constantly in the middle of things,” he reflects, “whereas in Australia, you can view the world more from an outsider’s perspective.

“If I’m not careful talking about this, I’ll soon be wearing flowing robes, playing the bongos and handing out flowers at airports!

“Also, when I’m in the UK, I tend to be always in cities or on motorways. Life in Australia is the perfect antidote to Little Chefs.

“That’s what they should have as the Australian Tourist Board slogan: ‘the perfect antidote to Little Chefs!’”

And one final question for Ross in the run-up to what promises to be one of the hottest comic tickets of the spring. How did he come up with the show’s title, Things? “The problem with creating a title is that you have to stick to that one theme,” the comic remarks.

“But by calling this show ‘Things’, I’ve given myself the option of talking about whatever I like. I don’t think anyone’s going to walk out of the theatre shouting, ‘I’m furious –he didn’t talk about things!’”

Ross Noble is sold out at the New Theatre tonight.