Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy

Fans of Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt's The Mighty Boosh will be familiar with the ideas on offer here: cartoonish characters, dream-like scenarios, quirky phrases. Fielding virgins, however, will be utterly confused by this solo sketch outing. The cult comedian takes surrealism to extreme lengths, with costumes, creatures and characters mostly unexplained, but there are some nice ideas: a recurring segment playing up the pretentiousness of art is a particular highlight. Fielding's an impressive character actor too, with a knack for amusing accents. Essentially, though, Luxury Comedy is made for Boosh fans and Boosh fans alone. If the phrase 'I slice bits of rainbow and put them in pitta breads' tickles you, give it a whirl. If not, probably best to stay away from this psychedelic sketch show.

More surreal, psychedelic nonsense from the Mighty Boosh star, rendered more watchable if you let all the lurid colours take on a hypnotic effect. Watch out for Sergeant Raymond Boombox, who channels the likes of Rockford and Columbo and has a face as yellow as a New York cab, and Roy Circles - part soldier, part PE teacher, part chocolate finger.

Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy review: Poor man's Boosh

This new show may well make all the right noises and pull enough stupid faces to keep the Fielding faithfuls happy, but it will need to contain a little more actual comedy (luxury or otherwise) to hold the attention of a broader audience.

Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy review

It's a shame that it wasn't anywhere near as funny as it was colourful.

Mike Fielding interview

Mike Fielding talks about his part in his brother's TV show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy.

"Television needs a madman," says Noel Fielding, and he delivers lunacy in spades in a new sketch show which is even more madcap than The Mighty Boosh. In the spirit of Kenny Everett but stranger still, the skits revolve around a crayon drawing of Pelé and a talking knife wound.

Interview with Luxury Comedy director Nigel Coan

We were lucky enough to spend some time with Luxury Comedy director and animator, Nigel Coan, who gave us glimpse through a different window...

Nigel Coan brings Noel Fielding's dreams to life

Nigel Coan is the director and animator behind Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, and is therefore responsible for the unenviable task of bringing the dream world inside Noel Fielding's head onto the small screen.

A (cough) zany sketch show set in a darkly childlike fantasy world of its architect's devising, Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy will doubtless appeal to anyone who's enjoyed the erstwhile Mighty Boosh man's work in the past.

But I must admit that everything he's ever done has left me not so much cold as frozen to the point of death. It's not that I don't "get" his humour - on the contrary, I understand perfectly well what he's trying to achieve - it's just that as an absurdist comedian he's so painfully uninspired and laboured.

Nevertheless, I honestly tried to approach this with an open mind, hoping that left to his own devices Fielding would prove that he's capable of more than pedestrian student whimsy. But as ever I was left bewildered as to how anyone could ever fall for this charmless rubbish.

Undeservedly self-regarding, he patently thinks of himself as a mind-blowing surrealist bursting with astonishing ideas (A sentient chocolate finger! A Noo Yoik cop with a talking wound!). But in reality he's the tiresome equivalent of the unfunny office clown persistently proclaiming how "mad" he is, but without ever once backing up his claims of comic ingenuity. His wide-eyed wacky dream-weaver shtick wouldn't be so embarrassing if he was actually funny, but at the age of 38 he just comes across as an overgrown adolescent attention-seeker with delusions of iconoclasm. Boasting a gaudy melange of deliberately amateurish animation, set design and costumes, his show certainly looks quite nice, and it's agreeable in theory to see something on television with a distinctive aesthetic. It's just unfortunate that Noel Fielding is in charge of it.

Chat between Alice Cooper and Noel Fielding

An intimate chat between the shock-rock great and the Luxury Comedy funnyman. Warning: contains dead chickens and goth golf clothing.