Noel Fielding isn't known for his live stand up, so when SSP heard he was appearing in London we had to head along to check him out - and grab some exclusive shots and an interview while we were there. Read on...

Noel Fielding isn’t short of accolades. With one of the most successful TV comedies this century already under his belt he is also a Perrier Award nominee, has more NME awards than anyone could possibly know what to do with and has nabbed GQ's Sexiest Man in the World award amongst others.

But amongst the plethora of gongs he has at his disposal, it is easy to forget that he started his career as a stand-up and was treading the boards of the UK comedy circuit long before The Mighty Boosh, or his partnership with Julian Barratt came to fruition.

But that was ten years ago. So to see a stand-up resurrect his work after a decade-long break is an opportunity not to be missed.

Although Fielding has appeared at charity shows of various forms such as The Secret Policeman’s Ball his appearance at Just the Tonic at the Leicester Square Theatre was one of the rare opportunities to see him perform a full live set.

Fielding certainly isn’t the usual kind of comedian. His jokes will flit between the surreal, such as tracking unicorns to the end of the Earth and the aloof nature of angelfish, to licking tree sap and the occasional jab at the London Lite – his pet hate.

“I don’t really take inspiration from other comedians, usually its music, fairy tales, quite a lot of things, artists, paintings and so on,” Fielding says. “I think if you watch too much comedy it can be a bad thing.”

“I see stand-up as a totally different thing to what I do in The Boosh. I have more material than I know what to do with and I would quite like to do more.”

What comes across most is Fielding’s acute sense of humour.

His material is rarely about short, sharp jokes and more about taking the audience into a surreal world, leading the narrative along for long periods, but he manages to deftly slip a witty joke about origami within a story about feeding fish without ruining the flow of the material.

This forms the backbone of Fielding’s comedy technique - surprise. The quick quips catch the audience off-guard and the laughter comes with a delay as the crowd catch up with Fielding’s own thoughts.

If you get it you’ll love it, if not, it may never quite work; which is why Fielding’s stand-up has received a mixed reaction from the press.

“My kind of stand-up can wear an audience out,” Fielding admits. “I think it is harder to do, as you have to have proper jokes but they don’t seem like proper jokes, they are drawn out.

“You can’t just go on stage and talk about cheese magnets otherwise people will tell you to ‘fuck off’,” Fielding chuckles.

Fielding may be precise about what his particular comedy is, but he is quick to compliment others who are starting out with a similar approach to him.

Young comic Joey Page who appeared at the same gig was given more plaudits by Fielding than he could possibly fit on a postcard home. "I thought Joey was great," Fielding adds. "He just took big long themes and ran with them."

“I thought there would be more people doing similar stuff to me by now. I started doing stand up ten years ago; I thought there would be a whole movement of us by now, a bit like the surrealists.”

As star of The Mighty Boosh, the show at the Leicester Square Theatre was a sell-out and the audience full of Boosh fans who adore him.

But Fielding’s popularity also brings out another side in an audience.

The biggest problem for anyone who has already made a name for themselves is being given the time and space to develop material before they are judged on it.

Apart from the paparazzi trying to get a pic at the door it is a strange quirk of the celebrity culture we live in that, saturated as we are, once someone reaches a certain popularity it almost becomes a right to bring them down.

“Brendan Burns once said comedy is the only job in the world where you come to try and make people laugh and people come to hate you for it,” Fielding says.

“When people heckle it is like when someone gets punched in a pub, everyone stands back, waiting to find out what is going to happen next.”

“My problem is that I respond to them. I enjoy the fight but once you engage in a heckle it is harder to get back into your material.

“I think you should get a couple of minutes' courtesy; people shouldn’t shout 'fuck off' as soon as you walk onstage.”

It took a full ten minutes before Fielding was able to properly start his set and even then much of his time was spent fielding heckles and counter heckles in the audience. But that is hardly going to stop.

Fielding allows himself a wry smile: “You have to be quite pumped full of adrenaline and its always hard to sleep after gigs like that. But I have been doing this for long enough to look after myself.”

Tim Clark

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