Gory slasher movie Stitches marks Ross Noble’s acting debut

ROSS NOBLE has finally taken to acting in style, by starring in a full-blown 18-certificate horror movie about a clown called Stitches.

“I’ve just done a film which comes out at Halloween. It’s tricky really about filming because the panel shows appear on television so much people think I’m on TV a lot, which annoys me. I do things like Have I Got News For You and QI and the odd chat show to let people know that I’m working live.

“People come up to me and say ‘I’ve seen you on that Mock The Week and Never Mind The Buzzcocks. I tell them ‘No you didn’t, you saw me on the two shows I do’.

“I play Stitches the clown who is a scummy children’s entertainer, bored with his job and hates children. He turns up at this children’s party and they accidentally kill him. They throw a football at his head, after tying his shoe laces together, and he falls over and lands in the dish-washer.

He gets a knife in his face and dies,” says Noble.

Some black magic clowns bring Stitches back from the dead and eight years later, when the children have become teenagers, there’s another party. “Stitches returns and tries to kill them in revenge but he uses his clown skills... like kicking someone’s head off with his big shoes. Another youngster’s innards are ripped out and turned into a balloon animal dog.

It’s horrific and gory in like an early Peter Jackson film in terms of bad taste.

“It’s very much an 18-certificate film. It’s basically Freddie Kruger meets the Chuckle Brothers.”

Noble calls the film a dream come true and was taken with the script sent to him by an Irish film company.

The script arrived through the post and the comic jokes that he told writer-director Conor McMahon “you had me at knife in the face”.

“I did come up with lines and gags and I was keen because I’d taken most of last year off. One co-star is Tommy Knight, who was in Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

“It has a happy ending... depending on who you are rooting for, but it’s got a proper cinema release and we’re doing the premiere in London on October 25 with a live question and answer beamed to all cinemas. I’ve seen it on the big screen and it’s gory but it’s funny.

“It had to be done because the kind of film I’ve been offered up to now has been like the comedy friend in a romantic comedy or a similar role in a sitcom. So when I saw this I thought ‘We’ll have some of this and do a full on slasher’.”