Noel Fielding has embarked on the second UK leg of his massive stand up comedy tour, An Evening With Noel Fielding, this week and he is celebrating with the release of his tour DVD, which was recorded live in Melbourne.
MoodyComedy was invited by the British Comedy Guide to send a few questions for Noel to answer, and the following BCG article includes the resultant videos of his answers, where he discusses why he enjoys working so much and what he plans to do in the future.
Noel tries to explain his show…
An Evening With Noel Fielding is hard to describe. It’s a tough ask, but we asked him to try and explain what people can expect:
It was a surprise to hear that one of my favourite television shows had suddenly been axed last week, and though something tells me that we haven’t heard the last from you, I wanted to send you a fond farewell, just incase.
Thank you Buzzcocks for showcasing new talent from the worlds of comedy and music, to name just two, and for supporting artistic intuition in the young, the old, and everyone in between. Thanks for stressing the importance of music in our society over the last eighteen years, and for recognising the relevance of all its forms, from the works of Adam Ant to One Direction, from Scissor Sisters to Dido. You demonstrated how music does, quite literally in this sense, bring people from all different cultures, backgrounds and lifestyles together under one roof, evident in the diverse array of panellists, line up guests and hosts over the years. And yes, thanks even for the hissy fits, the bitchy comments, the storm outs, the smashed mugs. They made for honest, if almost-guilty, entertainment and showed the true effects of throwing so many big personalities together.
Thanks for giving Noel Fielding a platform to show off his interesting sense of style, particularly the time he wore a dress with the clown from It pictured on it, where he was able to protest against Stacey Solomon’s accidental gender stereotyping. For the height difference between Tinchy Stryder and Greg Davies; for Richard Ayoade’s deadpan reading of the autocue; for Adam Buxton’s YouTube comments (or sutin). For Simon Amstell’s cushion; for Dragons Den’s Peter Jones’ pronunciation of ‘N-Dubz’ and for Paul Foot’s energetic interpretation of a traditional Ghanaian dance. And lest I forget that beautiful group rendition of Summer Nights.
From those with bold personalities like Paloma Faith and Russell Brand to the ones who shocked us with their wit and crudeness such as Ed Sheeran and Rita Ora. From James Acaster’s adaptation of the dance to Saturday Night to Lorraine Kelly’s exploding bra. From Amy Winehouse’s declaration that she’d rather have “cat AIDs” than work with Katie Melua to Tony Law’s vuvuzela and lederhosen. From Alice Cooper’s Elvis Presley anecdotes to Bernard Cribbins’ tips regarding how to kill Coldplay’s Chris Martin. From Hughes to Bailey to Fielding. From Lamarr to Amstell to Gilbert. For Phill Jupitus, who only missed one episode out of 262. And for Rhod Gilbert, who so excellently hosted the last series but is unfortunately prevented from continuing due to the show’s cancellation.
It is a regret of mine that I never managed to attend a recording, particularly as I was once invited but couldn’t make it. But I have seen the joys your show has brought to those I know who were lucky enough to see the show live, from those who returned home with a signed watermelon, to the comedians that I consider to be friends who have had helpful career boosts from featuring on the programme in recent years (and rightly so). I think a lot of us owe something to this show. It aided the countdown to Christmas each year and filled the hours, if nothing else. And there were many hours.
So thank you, Buzzcocks. We had fun. I hope to see you again soon.
I know I talked last year about Gadget Man but I feel I can’t not write something new about its wonderful new series and the hilarity that is Richard Ayoade.
As always, Gadget Man is a programme that shows us, obviously, plenty of exciting and wacky gadgets but it is presented, with thanks to Ayoade, in a punchy, intriguing way that stands out against the handful of other gadget-related shows out there. Armed with a fluorescent orange suit with a knitted blue tie, Ayoade exudes confidence and sass. When this is teamed with his pessimistic comments and constant sarcasm, he really is a man not to be messed with.
Richard’s clear disgust at the prospect of public transport, during episode two, really resonates with me and to feel I am in some way similar to this genius should welcomed openly by us all. Richard’s general hatred of everything is summed up in one sentence uttered to fellow comic, Russell Howard: “being with you has reminded of how much I prefer being on my own”.
There are often two guests per episode in this series and these include Tim Vine, Marcus Brigstocke, Adam Buxton, Russell Howard, Phill Jupitus and Ade Edmondson amongst many others. It’s obvious that this show is at it’s best and I would watch a new episode everyday if that was possible.
The series so far is available, as usual, on 4OD and you can watch the next episode on Channel 4 at 8.30pm on Monday.
A couple of weeks ago, the channel Dave broadcast five episodes of a wonderful new comedy chat show: As Yet Untitled. It was hosted by Alan Davies, ran over the course of one working week and featured four different comedians each episode. It has been said that this show was an attempt at recreating the feel of a comedy green room, with a relaxed atmosphere and a minimal agenda. Of course, I cannot truly know if it drew an accurate comparison as I haven’t been in such a situation myself, but I can say that a comfortable conversational feel was definitely present and I found the series incredibly enjoyable.
For a start, the physical set up was uniquely casual, with the four guests and Alan Davies (the host) sat around a circular table and the audience sat around them. The way the audience was situated had almost a Top Gear feel as you could always see them in shot, but they weren’t often involved in the proceedings. Each comic provided a strange fact about themselves to begin with which allowed the discussion to have some kind of initial direction but other than that, the show had a clean slate with the objective of deciding on a title for the episode at the end.
There was a danger with this loose format that conversation might not necessarily be free-flowing but this was expertly avoided by Davies who did an excellent job at steering clear of awkward pauses in discussion. In fact, the overall feel of the programme was very natural and chilled out which I thought was really nice. There was no pushing to have anyone’s voice heard over another person’s and everyone seemed very supportive of each other which is refreshing in comparison to the vibes you get from shows with more competitive, maybe harsher formats. An important impression I got from watchingAs Yet Untitled was that the attention was very much focussed on the stories and the people in the stories, and not so much on the comedians telling them. This meant that nobody appeared to be pushing particularly hard to be the funny one and in this way, I think the show definitely achieved its objective of seeming like a green room.
There were many funny anecdotes shared throughout the five episodes, including Bob Mortimer’s explanation of his and Vic Reeves’ comedy style, where in the early days, if the audience weren’t laughing, the double act would throw their shoes at them. We also heard the wonderful Katherine Ryan’s tale of the creepy inflatophiliac and Noel Fielding’s reason for disappearing from his own stand up tour (he ended up spending the day working in a vintage second-hand shop in Brighton, I mean, where else?). Bill Bailey’s account of his New Zealand airport kazoo confiscation was whimsical, as can be expected from Bailey and Phill Jupitus’ numerous celebrity impressions were spot on. Ross Noble’s tales about his accident-prone kids and Josie Long’s flawless diet plan were highlights of the final episode.
It was easy for the television audience to get carried away amongst all these hilarious anecdotes, which proves what an authentic mood there was, and every now and then I would remember how different the show actually is and feel really impressed at the smoothness of it all. At any point where a normal chat show may have become awkward, such as when they transition between topics or invite a special guest on, the conversation just continued on in the same fashion which shows integrity. The only flaw I could find, or perhaps the only stunted part of each episode, was trying to round it all off at the end. Of course, these would have been heavily edited to fit the time frame but the scramble to find a title could be done with more finesse in the future.
I adored this new show and the many guests on it; my favourites including Noel Fielding, Bob Mortimer, Katherine Ryan, Josie Long, Jason Byrne, Ross Noble, Bill Bailey and Marcus Brigstocke. I will be pretty annoyed if there aren’t more episodes made soon!