The Mighty Boosh team of Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt have divided critics into two distinct camps. On one side are those who think they are "weird", on the other are those who think they are "really weird". For a duo who started off with the noble intention of being the "new Goodies", they now find themselves being compared more to Ionesco and Beckett than the Funky Gibbon practitioners. It's "Comedy of the Absurd", but before you head to the box-office to get a refund, remember that you're dealing with probably the most innovative and exciting act in British comedy since Eddie Izzard.
The Mighty Boosh first appeared on the radar screens at the Edinburgh Festival two years ago. No one had heard of them before but after their first few shows, word-of-mouth and superlative reviews combined to make them the hottest ticket on the Fringe for many a year. In their eponomously titled show, they presented an action-packed woodland bonanza that featured two men stranded in a forest, not knowing why they were there or how to get out (cue the Godot comparisons).
It was their expert use of visual imagery that impressed first, plus their willingness to set fire to the comedy rule-book and present a show that owed something in influence to early Vic 'n' Bob, but was resolutely original and innovative. More a series of non sequiturs than gags, the show was rightly awarded that year's Perrier Best Newcomer award.
"What we do is not stand-up, not drama, not cabaret but an adventure," says Noel Fielding of the group's work. "The only way I can describe the show is that it's a series of strange, surreal scenes. Everything we do seems to involve us being swallowed up by a giant, evil eye with lots of strange props and lots of visuals and music in the background. There's also the point that we skim the stage like shaved bush babys, spurting inexplicable tales of back-to-front rams' legs, underwater gun fights and Spanish fullstops on mopeds." I see.
Fielding and Barratt first started off as solo stand-ups on the London comedy circuit five years ago. At the time, the sort of material they were doing was resolutely out of step with the then prevailing trend of "New Lad" humour. For performers who are more influenced by Jacques Tati than Ben Elton, they decided to link up and explore their own themes in a semi-theatrical setting.
Following on from their initial Edinburgh success, they returned last year with an even stronger show called Arctic Boosh, a slightly more prosaic tale in that it featured two postmen who were moved to work in the Arctic Tundra. Promiscuous yetis and flamenco were the main features of the work and the show was nominated for the full-scale Perrier Award (they lost out to Al Murray in the end).
If you like your comedy more on the Harry Hill/Sean Lock side of things than Paul Merton/Alan Davies, you'll only be asked to move a few steps further towards the surreal to appreciate what the Boosh are doing. And if it all sounds very fringey and experimental, it's not. Underpinning even their wildest excesses is a real knowledge of what works and what doesn't. The fact that they're both charismatic and very able performers helps to ease the passage.
The show they'll be doing in Galway is a new one, called Auto Boosh, getting one of its very first live outings. It's comedy served up with a side order of Dada, and lashings of genius.
Auto Boosh is at Cuba on Friday, July 21st and Saturday, July 22nd at 8.30 p.m.
