With his stand-up stage show about to hit the cinema screens, Geordie comedian Ross Noble talks to Steve Pratt about how he loves living in Oz and why he talks to his cows.

Washing up bowls. They are, Geordie comedian Ross Noble admits, the one thing that he's never really be able fully to get his head round. This may seem an odd direction for a showbiz interview to take. Surely we should be discussing the art of making people laugh or why he's a clown who yearns to play Hamlet.

But no, washing up bowls are what get him going - in a light-hearted sort of way because Noble is a generally laid-back bloke as half-an-hour in his agreeable company demonstrates.

Such bowls are a bone of contention in the Noble household in Australia, where he lives with his Aussie wife. There are odd little differences between life in Cramlington in the North-East and the Outback, but none engage him more than washing up bowls.

"They don't have them over there, they just wash their dishes in the sink. My wife goes mad when I buy a bowl to put in the sink. It makes sense and I think our system is better.

"You've got your washing up, you chuck it all in there, then you can leave your washing in the sink and pick up the bowl and move it to one side if you need to, and then put it back in. Whereas, the Australian way is basically wash your dishes and dry them.

"And teabags as well. There's a strange thing. A couple of my wife's friends are Aussies and have British husbands who take the teabag out and put it on the side. The Aussies put it straight in the bin."

Noble is not here to talk about washing up or teabags but the fact that his current stand-up stage tour, Nobleism, is going into cinemas. The Liverpool show is being screened live by satellite in Vue cinemas nationwide, including York and Hartlepool.

"Vue have done it with Formula One and Genesis and loads of big rock gigs and they wanted to have a go with comedy and see if that will work," he explains. "It's the sort of thing where, as soon as I heard, I thought 'I'll do it'. We did the same thing when I was in Australia. On the very last night of the tour I played some footage, a mix of stand-up and stuff I'd done on the road and that was getting big laughs.

"It was quite weird standing on stage and seeing 2,000 people laughing at clips and stuff. So it does work."

Unlike a film or DVD of a concert, this will retain the excitement of a live show. "I love the fact that it's never been done before," he adds.

He won't find out until afterwards how he's gone down with Vue audiences, as he'll only know which jokes the Liverpool audience finds funny. He's thinking about setting up his own interaction with the audience by giving out his phone number for them to ring during his act.

"That's another thing I love about it, that there's going to be this insane, crazy technology with signals being beamed up to satellites and all the rest of it for what is essentially a bloke talking b******s".

Noble previewed his Nobleism show at Billingham Forum, a try-out being a necessary precaution following an incident with some giant noodles on a previous tour.

"We've got a new set and need to make sure when we put the set up it doesn't fall down," he says. "A couple of years ago when I did the Noodlemeister show, I had this huge, tangled pile of noodles behind me on stage. The top of the set had been glued instead of stitched, and when the lights were switched on and heated up the glue, it collapsed. I'm talking away and about 30ft of noodles came down on top of me."

Australia has played a big part in Noble's comic career, as well as providing a wife and home. He went there in the first place because touring has always been his main love. The more interesting and varied the places he can travel to, the better.

"I literally went over to dip a toe in the water to see what it was like. I went over thinking it would be great to do some gigs and didn't bank on the fact that I would fall in love with the country," he says.

"Normally, I like going to places because I have a good time on stage. I went to Australia and had the best time, found it the best place I've ever been to.

"I was going back just for the love of it, then a couple of years ago it just went nuts. I'd do a show, get a handful of people, go back the next time and they'd told their friends and the place was full.

"It's got to the point where, in the big cities, you're doing 20,000-25,000 tickets over a run. Now I go to the Outback, right up north and into the middle of nowhere where, if there's a venue, you turn up and the whole town comes out. I just love it.

"It's like this country, but the weather is better and nothing is broken."

Being big Down Under, and living there, has made him more relaxed, especially as his house is in the bush and away from the big cities. "Before, the longest I ever took off before we bought the house in Oz was maybe a week at Christmas. I was gigging an insane amount. I was doing about 350 gigs a year, now I do 200 or 250," he says.

At home, he's able to emulate one of his comic heroes Frankie Howerd, who used to walk about with his cows. "I have four pet cows and it's one of those things, I talk to them. I don't have a script, but I go out and talk to my cows, which I really like," he reveals.

"That's why I have to do try-out shows before a tour - to make sure I don't do cow-related stuff."

The Vue satellite concert will put him on the screen, something of a novelty for a performer who's steadfastly rejected screen work. "I've always said I've never had anything against telly or films, but I think you have to do things because you want to. I don't just want to be one of those comedians who turn up on the telly for the sake of it, or appear in a bad film because they want to be famous.

"The satellite concert does take me more in that direction but in an interesting, different way. And it's fun as well."

For details of Larger Than Life! at Vue cinemas on October 21 go to www.myvue.co.uk

Ross Noble also plays five nights at Newcastle City Hall from October 23-27. Tickets 0191-2612606.