Interviews

Julian Barratt aka Howard Moon

Beating round the Boosh

How are the live shows going?

"It’s going well. We’re halfway through the tour now. We were quite surprised by the reaction to begin with, but it’s a cult show so when we started doing the live stuff, it focussed people. We suddenly saw there were a lot of fans out there.

"We never realised how Rocky Horror Show it would be. A lot of people dressed up as the characters – a lot of green faces and stuff."

Have you been surprised by the popularity?

"We always knew it work in a way, but it goes out at ridiculous times at night on TV, so it’s never gathered massive ratings. But a lot of people are into it, in a way that they feel as if they own it, which is what happens when something isn’t forced down your throat and you just find it yourself. There’s a lot of ardent fans, which is good."

Have you found it difficult to get back into doing it live?

Howard Moon and Vince Noir

"Yeah, maybe, a little bit more than Noel (Fielding, aka Vince Noir of the Mighty Boosh). Noel’s been doing a lot more live stuff throughout with stand-up, but I’ve still got the magic.

"It’s different skills, everything has to be big. If you’re playing a 2,000 seater and you’re doing this minimal thing, that’s not going to reach to the back seats, so you have to up it.

"It’s a confidence thing, having fun on stage. We’ve got a show that works now. We’ve been tweaking it as it goes along. It took us a while to get it really firing but now it seems to work almost of its accord."

Do you prefer to do it as a live show or on TV?

"I want to do radio again actually. I thought that was an amazing medium for music, soundscapes and adventures. You can create these incredible environments with minimal money."

There’s a lot going on in the Boosh. Where do you get your ideas from?

"The bloke that has them. There’s a guy that works down the docks and we just buy them from him.

"Everywhere. Me and Noel grew up watching Monty Python and listening to weird music that our dads played, so when we came to write stuff, it all ended up writing like that – monsters and weird stories and adventures. We wanted to do something that wasn’t like the realistic stuff that was happening at the time, it had to be more magical. We pursued that at odds with what was happening in TV and got a lot of rejection as a result."

Popular comedy often produces catchphrases. Are there any Boosh phrases you’d like to see pass into common usage?

Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt

"I don’t know if we have any catchphrases, but there are things people say to us. I tend to forget what they are. Just today someone came up to me and did something from the show, and I said ‘what is that?’ and they said ‘that’s you in the show’, and I was like ‘oh yeah!’ It was from years ago and I can’t remember what I said – my short term memory is rubbish!

"But it’s nice when people say things like that. It means it’s gone in there, into the imagination of the people, but we just carry on, we don’t try and crowbar catchphrases in."

One important final question: what’s more important to the Boosh – Noel’s hair or Howard’s moustache?

Vince's hair in close-up

"Well, I think it’s Vince’s hair. It’s the most expensive thing on the set. He’s got bodyguards for his hair and a lot of people working on it. It’s like a pit-stop. If he’s out and about, he’ll give a quick call and 15 men turn up in jump-suits and re-do his fringe. So it’s a big production; if that goes down, the whole thing goes down.

"The moustache? Well, you know, I’ve got a couple of false ones in case I lose it. Actually, the other day on the tour bus, we had a load of fake moustaches and everyone was wearing them. They put them on and then forgot they had them on and went out into the service station, all with moustaches on. Everyone had a moustache, it was strange (laughs). That’s just a little story about us on tour."