The Mighty Boosh

The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows, The Mighty Boosh, Arctic Boosh (1999) and Autoboosh (2000) as well as a six-episode radio series, it has since spanned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three which aired from 2004 to 2007, and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the United States. The first television series is set in a zoo operated by Bob Fossil, the second in a flat and the third in a secondhand shop in Dalston called Nabootique.

The style of humour in the Mighty Boosh is often described as being surreal, as well as being escapist and new wave comedy.

Various members of The Mighty Boosh have appeared in a number of different comedy series including Nathan Barley, Snuff Box and Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. Regular Boosh collaborators include Michael Fielding, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown, Nigel Coan, Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry. The troupe is named after a childhood hairstyle of co-star Michael Fielding.

Noel Fielding first met Mighty Boosh collaborator Dave Brown whilst Fielding was studying a foundation course in fine arts at the Croydon School of Art. Then from 1992 to 1995 Fielding studied Graphic Design and Advertising at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education and whilst there both Dave Brown and Nigel Coan were studying the same course as Fielding and all three shared a student house together. After they had lived together in student housing, Fielding, Brown and Coan then later lived together in a flat in Hackney in London.

Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt first met in 1997 when they both appeared on the same comedy bill at a pub in north London. In 2006 Fielding said that "We were doing stand-up and were on the same bill together. I was on first and usually you can only have about one weird comedian on a line-up. He’d been doing it a bit longer than me... [Barratt was like]'...Let’s write together'. I’ve been stuck with him ever since and that was about eight years ago or something." While Fielding and Dave Brown were both art students at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education "They were both regular visitors to the Hellfire Comedy nights next to the Wycombe Swan Theatre in High Wycombe, which is where Noel first met future Boosh co-creator, Julian Barratt".

Whilst Barratt and Fielding were on The Jonathan Ross Show, Ross asked them "And did you perform as solo acts ever, did you do like stand up..." with Barratt responding "yeah, yeah, that's how we sort of met really on the circuit, doing stand up, yeah.", with Ross responding "But, but was it similar to the Boosh stuff, 'cos the Boosh stuff it seems to be so much of a partnership I can't imagine it being taken apart and being served up separately.", with Barratt responding that "We were both doing quite surreal stuff, eh...", with Fielding adding "It was quite weird wasn't it, a lot weirder than the show in a way...", with Barratt continuing "...but we sort of, when we first met we kind of liked each others comedy but we didn't know that it would work, we didn't know whether it was gonna cancel each other out and make....", with Fielding responding "Yeah, too weird to make sort of, straight...", with Barratt continuing "...might just become geography or something else or... this sort of thing, but it worked for some reason...", with Fielding adding "We had quite a good chemistry straight away."

On the day they met they both went back to Julian's place that night where Barratt played music on his Akai sampler whilst Fielding used a ping-pong ball to make an eye patch. The pair soon found that they shared common interests in music and comedy which included Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and it was also commented that "Both wanted to get their material heard; neither had found anyone to work with who remotely understood what was going on in their head. It was a huge relief when they chanced upon one another and decided to be the new Goodies... ...What they take from the classic Seventies series is more the spirit of... ...silly and surreal comedy." Fielding has commented on their shared interest in music that "I was sort of a bit more rock n roll and pop and he [Julian Barratt] was a bit more jazz but then we sort of met in the middle with electro... but Julian was... I think he left university to join a band, we were both in bands before we were in the Boosh, so we sort of came from that background. Lot of our friends were in bands." It has also been commented that Barratt "...had dropped out of an American studies course at Reading University" and Barratt has also commented that when he was seventeen "We went to stay with a friend of a friend’s uncle but we came back after three days. We thought we’d make inroads into the jazz scene in London – we’d read biographies about guys who got gigs at Ronnie Scott’s and got spotted and immediately taken into someone’s band. So we told our parents we were leaving home. They gave us two days and we lasted three...". It was also commented that "...both [Fielding and Barratt] had fathers who loved Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, and who encouraged their sons to avoid getting proper jobs."

On his beginnings in stand up Barratt has commented that "I was never like Noel [Fielding] or Lee Mack, who are just funny all the time. No one ever said to me, you should be a comedian mate. But I watched a lot of stand-up at uni – people like Mark Lamarr, Sean Hughes, Eddie Izzard, just standing on a stage doing these phenomenal routines. And I could see how you could do it. So I started doing it myself, and I was so shocked when it worked. I remember one time I completely forgot what I was about to say, and I just ran out of the venue." It has also been commented that this occurred "...during his first standup sketch at Reading University..." and that he "...ran through the back door mid-act and through fields to a lake." Barrett has further commented that after he left the venue "...the manager came out after me and said: 'Get back in there, it’s going well.' So I went back. I suppose that was a big turning point for me."