MAX PATERSON
<Arts & Culture Editor>
You may or may not have heard of him, but Noel Fielding is a giant cultural icon in the UK. He is smooth, quirky, witty, outrageously fashionable, and he could quite possibly be the most insane man on television. Fielding is best known for his show The Mighty Boosh, but has since moved on from to create a 22-minute creative mess called Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy. In order to properly critique Luxury Comedy, it is important to take a walk down his television past and point out some important landmarks along the way.
The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh was a stage, radio, and TV show on the BBC that was created by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. It follows two zookeepers (Howard Moon and Vince Noir) as they tackle various ridiculous problems in their professional and personal lives. The show as a whole walks the fine line between reality and complete madness, and this is what attracts most fans to the Mighty Boosh.
The show and characters were created when Fielding met Barratt while they were both touring England as stand up comedians. They quickly adapted the show to stage and showcased three versions of the Mighty Boosh at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 1998-2000. As it increased in popularity, word of this wacky stage act spread to the BBC eventually leading to the radio series.
Following the popularity of the radio series Fielding and Barratt were commissioned to adapt the Mighty Boosh as a television show, which ran for 3 seasons concluding in 2007. This finally led to another very successful tour of stage shows in 2008/2009.
Overall the Mighty Boosh was well received in the UK and abroad as an off-the-wall comedy absurdity. It won a number of awards including the Douglas Adams Award for Innovative Writing, and a number of LAFTAS and NME awards.
Wanting to move on from the Mighty Boosh, Fielding had trouble deciding what to do next. Following up a successful series is always an incredible challenge for an artist, this being no exception for Noel Fielding. However, the direction Fielding took was even more subversive and wild than the Boosh, and he decided to perform this venture alone.
Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy
The BBC website describes Luxury Comedy as “a psychedelic character based comedy show half filmed and half animated”. Fielding himself says that he wanted to expose his audience to ‘undiluted madness’, and this writer can safely state that he has achieved this goal successfully.
It is very difficult to describe what the show is about, because it jumps around thematically and never really sticks to one storyline, but it basically revolves around Fielding living in a treehouse in the jungle with Andy Warhol and an anteater butler who wears a kilt (played by Fielding’s brother, Michael). In fact, Fielding plays over 54 characters himself so there is no shortage of screen time on his behalf.
Here are a few of the characters you’ll find on Luxury Comedy:
Tony Reason: A manta ray who is a respected music producer and lives in an underwater studio and has worked with everyone from Bon Jovi to Enya. He claims that Jim Morrison tried to sew him leather pants that turned out being a leather pouch.
Sergeant Raymond Boombox: A New York City cop who is proud of his hair and loves recounting tales of crazy times on the force.
Fantasy Man: Described as a modern day Don Quixote who loves to sing, Fantasy Man lives in a Tron-like world and is always setting out on crazy quests. He wears a disco ball hat, gold pants, and a cup as a chin guard.
Roy Circles: Roy is a chocolate stick that suffers from shell shock and dresses like a Buckingham Palace guard.
Daddy Push: Is a man with a conch shell for a head who really likes changing the tuner on radios and dancing to books on tape (especially Sherlock Holmes).
Jelly Fox: Exactly what you think, it’s a fox made from jello who lives with Grease-era John Travolta and loves to eat chips and apparently releases pollen from his face.
These characters provide some insight into the twisted nature of this TV show. Hopefully this article has educated and informed you about this recorded insanity. Personally, I consider myself a fan of The Mighty Boosh, in all it’s forms, however Luxury Comedy is a little too out there for me. I would suggest taking a look at Luxury Comedy, but do so knowing you may turn off the television feeling both confused and terrified.