The Mighty Boosh: ten secrets of our success:
How did the Mighty Boosh pull it off? Four years ago, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt were cult comedians, beloved of Fringe-goers and little known to the outside world. Four years later, they've made three series of their wonderful sitcom, sold out one big tour with another to come in the autumn - including two nights at Wembley Arena - and are currently trading as a rock band, headlining first their own festival and, this weekend, the Big Chill festival. They're NME cover stars. Teen pin-ups. Tabloid fixtures in a way that Eric and Ernie never dreamt of. Fifteen years after the dread phrase “comedy is the new rock'n'roll” was coined, they've finally made it true.
Yorkshireman Barratt, 40, and Londoner Fielding, 35, are much like their Boosh alter egos Howard Moon and Vince Noir. Barratt is wry, vivid, low-key. Fielding is as garrulous and unaffected as a man can be while still wearing a spangly silver jumpsuit from a photoshoot. They're a tight unit - cutting into their crosstalk requires a licence - and have been ever since they first staged a show at Edinburgh ten years ago. But then, when you're basing your career on something as fragile as cosmic whimsy meets Hope-and-Crosby banter - which, in the wrong hands, would just be second-hand surrealism - you have to be pretty tough. Here, then, are the secrets of the Boosh's success.
1 Don't know your place
Julian Barratt We had to be a bit bloody-minded to say we wanted to do these shows with our band. People got quite annoyed with us: what are you doing? Who do you think you are? You're comedians, just know your place! Put that guitar down and tell me a joke.
Noel Fielding People are quite cynical. They go, oh, you're frustrated rock stars. Well, neither of us want to be rock stars and never have. I've always liked comedy. But I like the idea of mixing the two together.
JB It's one of those things we always wanted to do and never got round to. You get caught up, people want another series - it's great, but you do get caught up. It's important to make sidesteps.
NF It's taking “comedy is the new rock'n'roll” to its logical conclusion: comedians actually doing rock'n'roll.
2 Keep your feet on the ground ...
NF If you're an actor and you're 21, and you get put in a film, it's probably quite a shock. But we'd done ten years of stand-up, and those are probably the most humiliating times of your life. So by the time you do get on telly and people know who you are, you don't forget how hard it was. In comedy you're always quite humble, because you never know whether the next joke you make is going to be funny.
3 ... but not too firmly on the ground
NF I always thought I'd be famous - which is hilariously misguided, isn't it? I remember once, my mate went to me, about some newspaper review of something I did: “That's great, isn't it, you're next to a picture of the Beatles. Bet you never thought that would happen!” And I went: “Well, I did, actually.”
JB When you're a kid you think that's what you are, you're the most famous person in the world. And I remember not understanding when I went to school, and some girls went, I don't like you - it was devastating. Because your parents are like, “we love you, we love you”, and then you go out into the world where people don't love you. You have to learn that you're not the greatest thing in the world.
NF The same girls really liked me.
4 Live in a dreamworld
NF When you're writing something, it's all you think about.
JB It's quite frightening when you go home and everything is going through that lens. Everything your girlfriend is saying is just going into the lens, the Boosh lens, and coming out the other side as the possible idea for a routine.
NF It's madness, really.
JB We're not thinking about whether ten people or ten million people get to see it, we're just thinking that it would be good to see. In our heads, these characters are real, however insane that sounds.
5 Look like amateurs
JB When we started we developed a home-made aesthetic because we had no money and we were doing shows in the back rooms of pubs. Like, you'd use a Polo for an eye for an animal, but it has its own logic and its own style to use that sort of found stuff. Now we're thinking of doing a film. Maybe we could get a bit more money for effects. But then you think, “is that funnier than us two on our settee going through something back-projected?”
NF People are saturated with MTV and adverts. No one ever goes: “Wow, have you seen that effect, it's incredible!” They just go: “Seen it a million times, a million adverts, a million times a day, who cares?”
6 Ignore outsiders
NF We've never listened to anyone. Ever. On anything. People try to chip in with ideas; we're always just like, “we're doing this, this feels really fun”.
JB A lot of the production people we encounter work in committees, and they're influenced by advertising-speak and surveys of what people laugh at. In the first series we had a character called Mr Susan, and we had this idea that he'd go “look at them shine!” about his miracles. Over and over again in the same intonation. We just thought it was funny. And we had a meeting about the series, we got this guy, saying: “Does he need to do it that many times? 'Cos it doesn't work; there's no logic to it.” You just have to go, “no, that's what we're doing”. But those things are difficult to hold on to, because they're delicate.
7 Find a friend
NF It's hard to direct a double act because we edit each other all the time. When you're on your own, you need someone else watching. When it's us, there's always another pair of eyes.
JB We're always looking for people to help, actually. But you need to be strong to come into a formed relationship like this.
8 Keep it in the family
NF Actors, I don't know about. They're not really people that I get on with; they're very pompous and earnest. Often we write things with someone in mind - Bollo the gorilla is my best friend from art college; Naboo the shaman is my brother, our parents have all been in it, my mate does the animations. Casting's a bit like being God, really. It's ridiculous, all our family and friends; it's like an art project.
9 Don't fall for fame
NF It never really feels like you've made it - it's always a shock when people suggest that. And when people go mad and scream at you, I still find it shocking. Girls go “aaaaaaah!” at you. And you go, “What shall I do? Shall I run away? I don't know.” You never ever ever get used to people going, “Oh, I love the show.” It's great, but it's odd.
JB Hysterical reactions are frightening, aren't they?
NF But it doesn't really feel like it's happening to you, does it?
JB I think you're better at understanding that than I am.
NF Yeah, you run away.
JB I run away. But also the idea of being famous and that, I don't even see what it is, I just think, “I'm not famous, I'm just in this work, it's just me and my friend.” And then I'm a bit taken aback all the time.
10 Never network
NF If your career is resting on one TV executive going, “yeah, I'll commission them”, then you're f***ed.
JB There was a long period when no one wanted what we were doing, so we just went and did live stuff. That was great, we went around the world with it. But we could have just gone, “what's happened? Why didn't we get the series? This is so wrong, we've got to find a way to go to a dinner party and meet this executive”. All of that energy you spend trying to get next to people, you could be using that energy to actually do something creative.
NF There is a whole generation of people who just want to self-promote. We never really had much time for that, did we?
JB We were rubbish at it.
NF We were terrible at it. We never spoke to anyone.
JB The one time we did, we went to this dinner party for BBC Three and we told the head of the channel that we were on mushrooms. We were just joking around, but he believed it.
NF Nearly canned our show.
JB We got a message that the series wasn't going to happen after all.
NF I had to ring him up on a Friday night and apologise. Beg him. Which was pathetic, really. But I'd do it again any time to get our show on.
The Mighty Boosh Band play at the Big Chill festival, Aug 2 (www.bigchill.net/festival.html; 0871 4244444). The Mighty Boosh tour starts on September 11 at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh (www.themightyboosh.com)
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