TV review: Ross Noble’s Freewheeling – Episode 2

If you’re a follower of Ross Noble you will have seen the random tweets appearing on his Twitter feed over the last few months.

You could be forgiven for assuming the arbitrary tweets were just Ross being his eccentric self.

They were, however, all leading up to this: Freewheeling, Ross Noble’s new TV show, where he takes requests, suggestions and invites from the eclectic and sometimes worrying strange British public.

This is the comedic, modern day take on the novel The Dice Man, where a man puts his life in the hands of chance to see where it will lead him.

It’s crowd-sourced comedy that shows the power of social media and its ability to connect people and create experiences from nothing.

The self proclaimed Geordie Ghandi or just a mad clown on a motorbike, journeys through drizzly Britain occasionally bumping into his comedy peers.

In episode one he delivered a plastic hedge to Eddie Izzard, bought a porcelain pet, crawled about on the pavement and got in a preach-off with a local religious shouty man.

This episode sees Ross in a service station car park, a cake bake in St Helens, Chesterfield Visitors Centre, cocooned in a giant scarf, engaged in paintball archeology via Manchester University and Paul Daniels’ shed…you really couldn’t write this stuff and it’s clear, no one has.

It all feels very slapdash and cheap but…it’s funny. Ross Noble is just plain funny and his love of the strange and ability to go with the flow and improvise can turn even the most mundane event into something hilarious.

We see a bizarre, usually unseen cross-section of Britain from little towns to old people’s homes; it feels strange, like we’re seeing something we wouldn’t normally see on television.

With anyone other than Ross Noble larking about in front of the camera the whole concept might fall apart, but I for one am happy to follow Noble around on his bonkers adventures.

Ross Noble’s Freewheeling airs Tuesdays at 10pm on digital channel Dave.