Comedian Ross Noble's dash through South Shields to reach evening gig

The stand-up comic, TV presenter and actor, who is from north of the River Tyne, in Cramlington, hopped on the ferry at South Shields after completing the run.

He even found time to drop by the wheelhouse for a selfie with the crew before tweeting the image to his 865,000 followers.

Noble took to Twitter to thank the ferry crew for getting him over to North Shields as he had to dash to a gig up in Glasgow after the run.

He tweeted: “And thanks to the lads on the ferry who helped me get to my show tonight super quick. And let me ride on the bridge. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Ferry skipper Mark Elsy, 38, of South Shields, was on duty on Sunday when Noble made his journey.

He said: “He’s a really friendly guy. It was a pleasure to welcome him on board.

"He came up to the wheelhouse to say hello. He even told us a couple of jokes. It was really funny. He was in a hurry to get up to Glasgow for a gig that night.

“One of the other crew members has an interest in motorbikes so he chatted with Ross about that. He also seemed genuinely interested in how the Tyne ferries actually work.”

Mark added: “We checked later on and it turns out that he made it on time to his gig in Glasgow and it was a nice touch for him to mention us in his tweet.”

Noble had earlier tweeted photos of him seemingly hitching a lift from other Great North Run competitors to the ferry..