Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy

Noel Fielding interview

An in-depth interview with Noel Fielding.

Joey Page interview

An interview with stand-up comedian Joey Page.

Noel Fielding 'furious' to be mistaken for a girl

Noel Fielding has admitted that he was "furious" to be mistaken for a girl when he was younger. The Luxury Comedy star told The Big Issue that his slight frame and hairstyle caused the mix-up when he was a college student.

Like many, it took me a while to get into The Mighty Boosh, but now I'm one of those people that gets into tetchy arguments while defending it against charges of gross hipsterism. So as a committed fan, I was fascinated to see what Noel Fielding's solo project, Channel 4′s Luxury Comedy, would be like...

Despite my love for Noel's work with Julian Barratt, I have to say I approached his new sketch show with a little trepidation. What really grabbed me about the Boosh wasn't the surreal characters and lo-fi, hand-made visuals, it was just Noel and Julian sat on a bench bickering like an old married couple. I embraced the oddness, but it was the traditional double-act stuff that grounded the show.

From the publicity, though, Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy appeared to be 100% surreal characters and lo-fi, hand-made visuals. They were always Noel's domain - he's had several art exhibitions around London - and without his verbal sparring partner, it seemed that 'grounding the show' was about as far from his mind as observational skits about aeroplane food.

After the first episode, I was left feeling a little flat. I'd chuckled, and the show did indeed look great thanks to the fantastic hand-painted sets and costumes, but the sketches didn't seem to hang together particularly well, and I didn't feel I'd quite got a handle on what Noel was trying to achieve yet.

Thank goodness I followed my own advice and gave a new comedy series a second chance then, as the second episode was a whole lot more enjoyable. Themed around art - with appearances from Andy Warhol and discussions about whether dressing up as a 'fireman baby' is a concept or a joke - the second episode had a satisfying cohesion that was lacking from the first. Is Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy laugh out loud funny? No. Is it interesting, cleverer than it likes to make out and, most importantly, going somewhere? Looks that way...

Noel Fielding's new comedy is inescapably whimsical - if you mean by that, capricious in its inventions and logic. Part of the point of it is its zany fecundity - the fact that you simply can't predict at any moment what will crop up next. But that's also one of its weaknesses, since pretty much nothing is inadmissable. I've even heard fellow comedians get testy about the style, parodying the burbling chain of nonsense that emerges when its practitioners are on song. And it isn't that it doesn't make you laugh, more that you can't quite work out why you did once you've stopped.

Audio: Fielding on the undiluted madness of new series

Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding has said he lost himself while filming his new series.

He told Radio 5 Live's Richard Bacon that the 54 characters he played erased his memory of who he was, but that he wanted to expose the viewer to the "undiluted madness".

Luxury Comedy has been commissioned for a second series.

Only fully paid-up members of the Fielding fan club need apply for this gorgeously designed, but ultimately tiresome half-hour of rag-week surrealism, reminiscent of spending too long in the formless, incoherent but undeniably vivid imagination of a hyperactive child raised on '80s cartoons and bad Beat poetry. In fairness, this is explicitly referenced in a neat reveal at the end, although we're not exactly talking Mulholland Drive here. Sketches about acid-fried rockers, art competitions and a visit to the 'jellyfox' lurch past, while Fielding's cod-psychedelic collaborations with Sergio Pizzorno at least bring a modicum of professional polish to proceedings. A feast for the eyes and ears, then, but brain and funny bone are consistently untroubled.

Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, review

The Boosh performer's latest TV effort abounds in surrealism but lacks coherence... and jokes.

Noel Fielding: The new face of surrealism

Noel Fielding's new solo show may be the most surreal thing ever seen on TV. He reveals all to his old friend and ShortList columnist Danny Wallace...