Ross Noble

Ross Noble: 'I was lucky I was crap at school'

Ross Noble talks about motorbikes, Australian manners and his fearless approach to stand-up.

H is for hero - which is what Stephen Fry has become to millions of TV viewers and Twitterers who hang on his every tweet. And it's also the letter that'll be the theme of the brand new series eight.

Regular panellist Alan Davies - who admits the endless repeats of this show on Dave even get up his nose - resumes his role of The Thudding Voice Of Ignorance. And he'll be joined by Phill Jupitus, Jack Dee and Ross Noble who'll all be aiming to come up with Quite Interesting answers to the show's posers.

But QI would be nothing without its genial headmaster Fry who sits atop this mountain of knowledge like an erudite genie. His trivia lessons often end up being quite a lot more interesting than the brave stabs at comedy.

Stephen Fry fans, prepare to hug yourselves with glee - RT's cover star is going to be everywhere this autumn and winter. The second, eagerly anticipated volume of his memoirs, The Fry Chronicles, is published this week (it's been too long since Moab Is My Washpot in 1997), he's doing gigs at the Royal Albert Hall and elsewhere and, of course, he's hosting this new series of QI. At last! We no longer have to survive on endless re-runs on Dave, so endless that we devotees know all the questions and all the correct answers and aren't caught out by the klaxon any more. So let's welcome the newness. As always, expect an erudite, if occasionally unnecessarily smutty delight, as we reach the letter "H". Genial perpetual QI loser Alan Davies returns, along with another regular, the cheery Phill Jupitus. Making up the quartet are the dolorous Jack Dee and Geordie comic Ross Noble, wild of hair and even wilder of imagination.

The closest you'll ever be to diving into an encyclopaedia and then surface, drenched in knowledge and needing to wipe facts about the Periodic Table from the corners of your eyes, is by watching this still-spiffing comedy panel show. Tonight Stephen Fry will set Alan Davies, Ross Noble, Jack Dee, and Phill Jupitus questions relating to the letter H, which means obscure questions on hacky sacks, the Roman soldier Horatio, and H out of Steps.

Who is tvBite's least favourite person on QI this week? Alan Davies? KLAXON NOISE. Why, this week it's Phill Jupitus. Phil's 25th appearance on the show brings him level with Jo Brand as most-used guest. He moves above Alan as most annoying person because of that book where he claims to have invented great radio, despite presenting one of the most irritating shows ever. Maybe DJs should be allowed to choose their own music but they should also SHUT UP and not carry on in an annoying nasal whine. Even more annoying, Phill shouldn't have even been on the show but Sean Lock was stranded on the Isle Of Man.

Anyway, that's by the by. We like QI, in general and it is back with series H. (By the way, prepare yourself for an autumn of wistful mellow fruitiness because Stephen Fry will be everywhere. He has a book to flog and a live Albert Hall show to publicise). The episode is titled Hodge Podge, the other guests are Jack Dee, Ross Noble and over all there are many worse ways to begin your weekend.

Archive comedy clips have never sounded so odd. Alan Carr interweaves segments from the BBC archives with his own fictional escapades. In this first show, he goes on a hen night that somehow ends up involving Les Dawson, Ross Noble, Michael McIntyre, a lamppost and plenty of cling film.

A good actor is a bore, but a bad actor is hilarious, and Count Arthur Strong is the most useless luvvie in the land. A petty snob with an inflated sense of his own importance, he can't work out why he isn't far more famous: Why do you people always have to go through this pathetic ritual of pretending not to know who I am?

Ross Noble reckons he's the funniest comic character around, and now you can buy his first radio series on CD. Hear him audition for the role of James Bond (narrowly losing out to a muscular milkman from Edinburgh) and holding a shambolic book signing in his local butchers. The brilliant creation of actor Steve Delaney, it must be just a matter of time before this master of malapropism transfers to TV.