As comedy duo Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding took over a small part of the Kent countryside to perform their own music festival, Such Small Portions sent Tim Clark to checkout the fancy dress, giant games of bingo and the surreal world of being a Mighty Boosh fan.

As expected the fancy dress routine started early. A group of three pink face-painted men stood meekly in the aisle of the train as they each assembled their costume, a pink head with tentacles and a beer-can helmet, or Tony Harrison the fictional character in the Mighty Boosh.

The various heads and their owner’s were on their way to join a multitude of green hitchers, walking video-tape monsters, and up to 30,000 others who descended on Hop Farm, near Tonbridge in Kent on Saturday to witness a slice of comedy history.

Backed by ex-meanfiddler head honcho Vince Power, The Mighty Boosh have become the first comedy act to headline their own UK festival.

It’s a pretty big deal, comedy wise they should be able to boast the biggest audience for a comedy gig this century. Not since the likes of Robert Newman and David Baddiel graced Wembley arena has a comedy duo pulled in the crowds. But the Boosh don’t draw an audience as much as build their own little micro-cosm of reality based on their show. If the dress-up wasn’t enough, half the audience knew the words to most of the three series, putting the average fan in the shade.

With a bill which included The Charlatans, The Kills, Gary Numan, Har Mar Superstar, plus DJ sets from the likes of Peaches and Jarvis Cocker its an audacious feet for the comedy duo.

That same sheer audacity seemed to pay off as Noel Fielding’s alter-ego Vince Noir burst onstage - silver jumpsuit in hand - on top of a giant silver boat, tugging Julian Barratt’s Howard Moon in behind to the tune of ‘Future sailors’.

This set the tone as Barratt provided the anchor for Fielding to indulge in his pop-star ego and run through the range of Boosh characters with more costume changes than Madonna. For over an hour favourites from the TV series such as Bob Fossil and Old Gregg formed the back-bone of a sort of modern day variety show.

Fossil - the ill-tempered owner of Bob Fossil's Funworld, the zoo that formed the setting for the first series, faced a dance-off with Har-Mar Superstar while Old Gregg, a transsexual merman tried to work his charms on Howard with the help of a funk alien.

It’s the Boosh’s brand of comedy that works especially well in a live setting. Not only have the Boosh transcended their comedy roots, they’ve bridged the gap between their TV show and an ever more promising live career.

The sight of Barratt being chased across the stage by an extraterrestrial covered in tits which lactates liquid Funk shouting: “Come, come and suck on my titties Howard,” is up there with the weirdest live performances I’ve ever seen.

The worry though is that the Boosh will suffer from the effect of being a see-once frivolity rather than the crowned comedy kings of Rock and Roll that they have been proclaimed to be.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show, the Boosh the set seems like one giant in-joke, but for anyone accustomed to their eclectic comedy it forms a perfect partnership between their current cult status and whatever Fielding and Barratt decide to do next.

As for the festival as a whole it wasn’t a sell out and apart from the Boosh themselves the comedy was sidelined away from the main part of the site.

The festival the promoters vastly under-estimated the size of the crowds willing to spend the best part of an afternoon under the garish multi-coloured awning to see the likes of Simon Munnery, Robin Ince, Frankie Boyle, Arj Barker, Mark Watson, Ross Noble head the comedy stage, with queues simply to get near the tent never mind getting inside it.

Worries about public transport were also proved right as many festival-goers were left stranded by a farcical bus ticketing system in which you had to book a return three days in advance to get a on a coach.

If the Boosh festival does mark Powers’ return to the festival fold then a camping licence for next year is a must.

Faced with a long walk back to London many slept on roundabouts and in fields – conjuring up images of fancy dressed lunatics running amok in the Kent countryside - while around fifty others, including this reviewer, waited out the night in a field, a Waitrose car-park and finally a train station for the 7am service to Charing Cross.