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The Mighty Boosh Live at Warwick Arts Centre

Gigs // Nick // 15th March 2006

For those of who do not have the benefit of those extra digital TV channels, or can’t be arsed to look at what’s on other than Sky 1 Celebrity Arse Baring or the football, The Mighty Boosh have been ploughing their own surreal furrough on BBC 3 for two series now, and have recently had the good fortune of being transferred to BBC 2 at some graveyard-shift time dictated by people who still believe Ann Robinson is good for ratings. Anyway. I must admit I’m biased as I’m one of the few who’ve watched with increasing desperation as a great show has been ignored whilst Little ‘we’ve got three catch phrases’ Britain gets put in the ‘British comedy at it’s best’ filing cabinet and distributed accordingly like a sprinkler attached to an incontinent. Which is actually quite a good metaphor for Auntie Beeb – overage and overweight, slightly doddering and doesn’t understand what her kids are up to.

With this in mind, I must admit I was slightly apprehensive about going to see them live, for a few reasons;

1) On the TV show there are a number of fairly abrupt scene changes, many characters are played by the same guys, and there are a lot of musical interludes. Could this transfer to a live show?

2) A lot of the fun is in the flights of fancy and banter, again see above.

3) Most importantly, our resident cynic extraordinaire Jim was coming, who had never really seen the show, so I was expecting him to take my rose-tinted spectacles, throw them on the floor and grind them into dust with his sharpened stilettos of critical bombast.

As it happened, it was pretty good. Jim already was starting his review midway, as usual, I think it will be along the lines of  ‘a modern day Morecombe and Wise’ (hopefully I’ve stolen his thunder here) – but I think I even saw him crack a smile. Describing the show, particularly if you haven’t seen it on TV is quite tricky. There is a pretence of a story and plot in the middle, but has an opening introduction that has the two guys who essentially are the Boosh, doing a bit of banter in front of a closed curtain in the same way as a warm up for Sunday Night at the Palladium. Here we are introduced to the characters;

Howard Moon (Jazz maverick / novelist / philosopher / etc – he spans all genres. Badly)

Vince Noir (Cheeky cockney mod / Electro boy pop icon / premier hair of the century);

Secondaries; Naboo, a shaman who is more mashed than mystic; his familiar Bollo, a gorilla who DJs at clubs; and Bob Fossil, an American grotesque with the IQ of a hitherto undiscovered particularly thick anaerobic amoeba.

By the time this has ended at least half an hour has gone, but it doesn’t feel like warm-up as it is funny. Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt (who play Vince and Howard) have an easy repartee that comes from working together for a long time and having worked at their craft hard – what seems like ad-libbed asides get referenced much later in the show – but there is still a lot of on-the-spot stuff going on.

The Mighty Boosh: Funny, Gibbering

The plot and story of the centre of the show is irrelevant – some twaddle about a ten thousand year old gem with the ability to bring the shaman back to life (killed off in the first scene – never good for appearance fees), together with an evil cockney devil escaping from his own pandora’s box. This is all just part of the Boosh random mythology. You could argue that it’s all just to allow the set up of some funny lines, but the funniest parts do not rely on the situation. You could badly mime brushing broken glass into the audience from a mime door that someone has badly mimed breaking anytime, obviously. The treatment of situation is done knowingly, obvious that it is a set up on stage, ironically self-referenced, but done with such chutzpah that it is more an homage to the obvious slapstick of an earlier age.

Bollocks, I’m coming back to Jim’s analogy of Morecombe & Wise. Chris, my wife, summed it up quite well by saying it was like if you got all your funniest mates from school, and let them put on a play without giving them a script. I’d add that you did give them some fairly heavy-duty pharmaceuticals. There is a lot I could say aesthetically comparing this to the realism of 'The Office' or the carefully scripted sitcom of 'dinner ladies ' and where it sits inbetween them, but to be honest I think it's better to find out yourself - and have fun doing it. Or if you really can't be bothered, buy me a pint and I'll tell you.

There were a few downsides. There were a some occasions when obvious fanatics overdid the applause, and the encore, though not quite a ‘group wank’ as Jim described it was aimed at existing fans who knew the previous material.

All in all a good night out. I particularly like the gibbering moron that is the moon. I’ll just sign off by saying if you can’t get to see it live then watch the TV show. Your brain will like you for poking a few areas that are normally left alone.

Boosh Links...

Mighty Boosh Fan Site

oh so comprehensive

Mighty Boosh Official Site

Check out Julian's page

Victor Lewis Smith on The Boosh

Not a fan