Live at the Brighton Centre

The Mighty Boosh is the brainchild of Julian Barrett (who plays Howard Moon) and Noel Fielding (Vince Noir). The duo picked up the prestigious Perrier Award for their debut in Edinburgh in 1998 and have been wowing audiences ever since. In its many incarnations, The Mighty Boosh has been a radio show, a TV show on BBC3 and a stage show. Fans of the show recognise it for its sheer surrealness and originality.

Myself, D-Boy and Science Girl walk into the theatre a couple of minutes late and plan to sheepishly take our seats. Unfortunately out seats are 4 rows from the front and the stealthy entrance doesn’t really pay off.

“You think you could get here for the start, the time’s on the ticket you know!” smiles Vince Noir from the stage.

“We’ve been in the pub!” shouts back Science Girl, ill advisedly.

“Alcholism isn’t an excuse, it’s a disease,” retorts Howard Moon.

Amidst the laughter we find our seats and the show continues with a fan mail gag with sound effects and internal monologues that could have come from the Morecombe and Wise Comedy Gold handbook. Noel Barratt and Julian Fielding are the unquestionable stars of this show. While it is always very apparent that the cast have ad-lib input along the way it’s these two that write and perform the majority of what makes the Boosh so good.

The show starts in the same way it always has, the central characters stood in front of a curtain talking about the show to come and in the process setting up running gags you can see a mile off. For this show, Howard has been to mime school. If you’ve seen the first series episode called Tundra then you know where the plot of this 90-odd minute comes from. Naboo, their mysterious yet curiously laid-back shaman friend is dead and the only thing that can revive him is The Egg of Cacundoo which is hidden in the depths of the Arctic… or Spain.

Queue Vince in a poncho and Howard in 19th centre artic explorer gear.
Queue yetis and tent gags.

.. and soon after queue Rudi and the Hitcher, two cameo characters who threatens to steal the show on several occasions. As part of his entrance rant, delivered in trademark mockney cockney, the Hitcher tells us: “I’m evil! I’m a… nob… Yeah that’s right, I raped a dolphin, well technically it was a porpoise, but one blow holes as good as another.”

The Hitcher continues in this ludicrously near the knuckle manner all the way through the show, right up to his climactic (and wonderfully choreographed) show down with Rudi (AKA Cilit Bang) The show’s sets look like they’ve been borrowed from a travelling theatre but actually do a pretty good job of setting the scene. The sound design is pretty special too. The whole thing is acted out with the same barely rehearsed style that has always made The Mighty Boosh so endearing and the whole thing bounces along at an enormous rate, an orgy of song, dance, big hair and bad mime. To top it off an encore appearance from season two character Old Gregg (Noel in a ludicrous wig) left me wanting to see the new live show, whenever it may happen to emerge.

In case you’re wondering why the details of the show as given here are a tad vague then it’s because I was laughing my arse off all the way through. When something is a genuinely laugh out loud hysterical as The Mighty Boosh it’s impossible to remember details and exchanges, you just remember having a completely overwhelmingly great time.

The Mighty Boosh will be recording a new live DVD at Brixton Academy at the end of the month.

Posted by Jaguar Wong in Reviews • Add to del.icio.us Add to Digg