Noel Fielding
Noel Fielding is an English comedian, artist, and actor. In 1998 along with Julian Barratt he co-created the comedy troupe The Mighty Boosh where Fielding played Vince Noir along with several other characters. Other notable performances include Richmond in the IT crowd, the lead role of Dick Turpin in The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin and he has been a co-presenter of The Great British Bake Off since 2017. He has also had a successful solo career as a stand-up comedian and is known for his dark and surreal comedic style.
Fielding began performing stand-up comedy when he graduated from art school in 1995, and in 1997 he first met Mighty Boosh collaborator Barratt when they both appeared on the same comedy bill at a pub in north London. Around 1998, they performed their first comedy show together in London, which was a mix of stand-up and sketch comedy, then later in 1998 they took the show, The Mighty Boosh, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They returned to the festival in 1999 with Arctic Boosh, and in 2000 with Autoboosh. In 2001 The Mighty Boosh became a six-part radio show on BBC London Live, called The Boosh later transferring to BBC radio 4.
In 2004, the Mighty Boosh became a television show The Mighty Boosh, which ran for three series on BBC Three until 2007. The show generated a cult following and won awards. From February to April 2006 they went on tour around the UK with the stage show The Mighty Boosh Live and then toured the UK for a second time from September 2008 to January 2009 with The Mighty Boosh Live: Future Sailors Tour.
During the 2000s, Fielding also had smaller roles in other comedy shows for Channel 4 including Nathan Barley, AD/BC: A Rock Opera, and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. After The Mighty Boosh, he wrote and starred in two series of a solo show for Channel 4 called Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, which ran between 2012 and 2014. He appeared as a team captain on the BBC Two comedy panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks, originally from 2009 to 2015, and again since 2021. He appeared on the The Big Fat Quiz of the Year on thirteen occasions, has been a guest on Richard Ayoade's Travel Man series and has appeared in several music videos.
Fielding, along with Sergio Pizzorno from the band Kasabian, formed the band Loose Tapestries as an alternative project in 2012, to provide music for Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. Fielding has also exhibited his artwork in London, and collaborated with Fendi for their autumn/winter 2021 menswear collection.
Early life and education
Fielding was born in the Westminster area of London in 1973, the son of Royal Mail manager Ray Fielding and Yvonne Fagan and he grew up in Mitcham, Southwest London.He is of French descent through his father who Fielding has described as being "..basically French" and when Fielding was three years old, his father remarried and Fielding was mostly raised by his paternal grandmother.
His father and stepmother, Diane, would later become more involved in parenting during Fielding's mother's illness in the 1980s. His mother had two more children before dying in 1990, aged 37 years old, from complications caused by liver damage. Fielding has commented that, "My parents had lots of parties... They were hopelessly bohemian."
Michael Fielding, his younger paternal half-brother, later played various characters in The Mighty Boosh TV show and live stage shows as well as Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. His father, Ray Fielding, and his stepmother appeared in The Mighty Boosh TV show, with his father having several cameos as Chris de Burgh.
When Fielding was around 6 or 7 he was at a Kiss concert, wearing a Kiss costume and he was taken to the backstage dressing room of Kiss so that Gene Simmons could be shown his costume. At the age of 13, Fielding began writing comedy sketches. At the age of 15, Fielding became a goth and had goth girlfriends
and at this time he first tried using makeup and said he loved being dressed up by his girlfriends.
Whilst studying at Croydon Art College Fielding met Mighty Boosh collaborator Dave Brown. From 1992 to 1995 Fielding studied for a BA in graphic design and advertising at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education in High Wycombe, graduating in 1995.
Whilst at Buckinghamshire College both Dave Brown and Nigel Coan were studying the same course as Fielding and all three shared a student house together. Nigel Coan also collaborated with Fielding on the Mighty Boosh. After they had lived together in student housing whilst at Buckinghamshire College, Fielding, Brown, and Coan also later lived together in a flat in Hackney, London.
Career
Stand-up comedy
Fielding began performing comedy while at university and he began performing stand up when he graduated in 1995.In 1997, he first met Mighty Boosh collaborator Julian Barratt when they both appeared on the same comedy bill at a pub in north London. Barratt had had more experience in performing than Fielding. Later, on The Jonathan Ross Show, Barratt said that they had liked each other's comedy but didn't know if a collaboration would work, but, according to Fielding, they "had quite a good chemistry straight away".
On the day they met they both went back to Julian's place that night where Barratt played music on his Akai sampler while Fielding used a ping-pong ball to make an eye patch.
They shared an interest in music, with Fielding more into rock and roll and pop, and Barratt preferring jazz, but both enjoyed electro. Both had played in bands before meeting. They also shared common interests in comedy, including Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
In 2010 Fielding was going to perform a solo tour across the country and then it was cancelled with Fielding announcing via Twitter that he was too busy to do the tour as he wanted to concentrate on writing The Mighty Boosh film with Julian Barratt as well as creating a new album. In 2012 he toured Sydney and Melbourne performing a solo stand-up show as well as hosting a stand-up comedy gala as a part of the Just For Laughs festival held in Sydney.
From 2014 to 2015 Fielding toured the UK and Australia with a new comedy show An Evening With Noel Fielding that included both stand-up comedy and sketch comedy and along with Fielding included performances from his brother Michael Fielding and long-term collaborator Tom Meeten. Mighty Boosh collaborator Nigel Coan created the animation for the show.
In 2005 and 2010 Fielding performed a solo stand-up show at Montreal's Just For Laughs comedy festival and in 2020 the festival had to be moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic and during this period Fielding and Jimmy Carr live streamed a conversation from their respective homes.
''The Mighty Boosh''
Barratt and Fielding performed together for the first time in Stewart Lee's show, Moby Dick and King Dong, in which Barratt played King Dong's penis.Sometime around 1998 they then put on their first comedy show at Oranje Boom Boom, which "was very raw, but... hilarious", and afterwards got a gig at Hen and Chickens Theatre, a theatre bar in Islington, London. They then took The Mighty Boosh up to Edinburgh in 1998, followed by Arctic Boosh and Autoboosh. Fielding said about their first live show in 1998 that they had worked on their ideas together, and played "zookeepers got sucked through our bosses' eyes and into a magic forest". Both Michael Fielding and Richard Ayoade appeared in a performance of the Mighty Boosh at the Hen and Chickens in 2002 during a live run through of a Mighty Boosh pilot. Fielding and Barratt said that they used to put potted plants all around the Hen and Chickens "to try and make it into a sort of play", but they "didn't know anything about theatre or what you did". The name "Mighty Boosh" was originally a phrase used by a friend of Michael Fielding's to describe the hair that Michael had as a child.
In 2001 The Mighty Boosh became a six-part radio show on BBC London Live, later transferring to BBC Radio 4.
In 2004, it became an 8-part TV show which aired on BBC Three, with a second series airing in 2005, and a third airing in 2007—20 episodes in all. In each series the setting changes, with the first series set in a zoo operated by Bob Fossil, the second in a flat, and the third in a secondhand shop in Dalston called Nabootique. The Mighty Boosh almost did not make it to television, until Steve Coogan's production company sold the concept to the BBC simply by saying: "If we were young, we'd want to be them". The style of humour in the Mighty Boosh is often described as being surreal, as well as being escapist and new wave comedy. Fielding has said "I think our show is magical and fantastical. We tell very intricate, weird stories. Vince Noir is quite modern, a bit of an indie kid; Howard Moon is... eccentric... and we rely heavily on Julian's music and my animation".
Fielding said that for the first three weeks of the TV show, he did all of the paintings for the animations, but this led to lack of sleep, so Ivana Zorn, Nigel Coan's partner, started doing most of the painting, with Fielding just designing the main characters.
Fielding formed "Secret Peter Productions" with Nigel Coan, and Coan along with Fielding and Zorn, helped to animate series 1 and 2 of the Mighty Boosh TV show, An evening with Noel Fielding and Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. Coan also directed Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy as well as helping to write it along with Fielding. Dave Brown also contributed graphics for the Mighty Boosh and Julian Barratt composed all the music. Other regular Boosh collaborators included Michael Fielding, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown, Richard Ayoade, and Matt Berry
In 2006, Fielding and Barratt went on tour with a new theatre show The Mighty Boosh Live. Fielding later said "We always thought we'd make one show and that'd be the end of it. But after we won the Perrier, everyone was telling us that we had to do another, which we did and brought it to Melbourne and won the Barry, and then we made a radio show that won the Douglas Adams Award... It went on and on". The Mighty Boosh also won the Shockwaves NME Best TV Award three times in 2007, 2008, and 2010. From August 2008 to January 2009 they went on tour for a second time with a new stage show of the Mighty Boosh.
Fielding has said several times that he talked about writing a film with Barratt, and he would have loved to do so, but they never got around to it. They wrote two film scripts which did not make it to production. One was a "Rocky Horror Picture Show type thing", according to Fielding, in which Barratt played a character who has woken up believing himself to be the last man on earth. The other was an Arctic adventure – "because we always liked the Arctic".