Interview taken ( & edited ) from HermAphrodite #9.

And from talk of all things silver, I love to ask whether his TV series plan - whereby he and Julian drive around France in a van on their days off solving crimes in silver suits.

Noel - “We were just going to turn up, ask ‘Are there any crimes ? We’re only here for a day but we’ll sort it out’.”

me - “So like ‘The Littlest Hobo’ crossed with ‘The A-Team’ ?”

Noel - “Yeah. I’ll be Face. Obviously. Julian will be Hannibal.”

And so, if that is their future, imagine the past...

me - “If you’d been born eighty years ago would you have become a real life Flannagan - ‘brackets or Tucker close brackets’ - or just ended up running some sort of Dust-mite Circus because they’re cooler than fleas because fleas want all the attention but dust-mites never get any?”

Noel - “I don’t think I’d have done comedy if I was born eighty years ago.”

me - “You’d have been working in a mine ? Or a mill.”

He perks up at the talk of mills.

Noel ( happily ) - “A mill ! Yeah !”

And not just because at some point he’d be able to say there were ‘trouble’ at it, either. He would have had greater things in store for his early 20th Century self.

Noel - “I’d have been a lord. Shooting people that were on my land.”

me - “With a wig ?”

Oh yes. He’s grinning now.

Noel - “With a wig, yeah. And some crisps.”

me - “Did they have crisps eighty years ago ? They had potatoes... You could have invented crisps.”

Noel - “I couldn’t have invented crisps.”

me - “It would’ve been good.”

Noel - “I don’t REALLY want to be known as The Man Who Invented Crisps.”

me - “Why not ? The kudos and the money...”

Howard - “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Noel - “I invented apples.”

If you say it with enough conviction, there are folks who’ll believe you.

Noel - “And Karen invented wheat. No, yeast.”

Karen does not make a move to deny this. Noel continues his list.

Noel - “I invented pandas, and caps. I invented soil.”

And there I have to interrupt him. Because he said a key-word. And my mind leapt elsewhere.

me - “My dog keeps eating soil.”

Because she’s stupid. She meets more sheep than dogs and she has no role models. But mostly because she’s dappy. So can the seated room think of a cure ? No. Will they stick their two-pence-worth in anyway ? Sure.

Howard - “That’ll give him worms.”

He starts wheezing with laughter.

( That bright ‘n’ breezy compere routine he does is all a sham, you know. Secretly he yearns to support Russ Abbott throughout the year in a crumbling ball-room on the end of a rickety pier in a windy seaside town where OAPS go to die. )

I ignore this. I want a solution, not a quick quip.

me - “Can you think of a cure ?”

Noel - “I’ll sleep with her. I’m a special kind of vet - people bring the animals in, and I sleep with them.”

Oh lawks, and I thought he only had an affinity with penguins.

He turns to Karen.

Noel - “Do you have any sickly pets that need some time with a vet ?”

Karen - “I’ve never had a pet. I only ever had a goldfish. My mum trained it - well, she reckoned she trained it. She reckoned that if she put her finger in the tank, then it would come up and she could tickle it on the belly. I thought that was just that they thought it was food.”

But that fish does not need Noel’s help. And if Howard still had his snakes ( Noel - “You had snakes ? I had a garter snake called Clayton.” ) they wouldn’t need Noel’s help either. Uh-uh.

Noel - “What I was saying was that I was going to start a vet practice. People would bring me their sick animals and I’d sleep with them. Turtles. Parakeets. I’d give parakeets blow-jobs.”

Howard - “Don’t let them return the favour, those beaks can nip.”

Oooh, dear.

Noel - “I’d go around the zoo, like James Herriot...”

me - “But in a late-night Channel 5 way...”

Noel - “Saying ‘Giraffes ? Really ? Bring them to me.’”

And then we start talking about, um, gloved entry. And the smaller mammals. And it’s in your own best interests that I don’t transcript that part of the conversation. Because things such as the following were being said;

Noel - “Howard - you MUST have stuck a finger up your arse at least once.”

And so I’m moving on to battered mush-rooms. Yes that’s right, look impressed.

me - “Al Murray...”

Noel - “Who ?”

( It should be noted here that jet-lag hasn’t addled his memory; the Arctic Boosh just lost the Perrier Award to Al Murray… )

me - “That comedian.”

Noel - “Who’s Al Murray ?”

me - “The famous person that wins things. He likes the battered mushrooms they sell in a chip-shop in Edinburgh. Do you have a favourite thing ?”

Noel - “In Edinburgh ? I quite like the City Cafe. Because you NEVER get served in there. And I like the idea that you can go in there for THREE HOURS and still not get your order. I think that’s quite funny. And then when you say ‘Can I have some food - I’m wasting away’ they have the audacity to tut at you. When there’s only four of you in there. Fuckers. They should all be shot in the face. Sorry. I’m only joking. And I’m really tired.”

Well I’ve only got a few more questions left, sweets. But they are very important ones.

me - “Did you genuinely start out in your comedic way dressing up as Jesus and squandering your artistic talents on your own chin by drawing a small water-colour beard on there and then watching it melt under the stage-lighting ?”

Noel - “That is true. I used to dress up as Jesus. That’s what I first did onstage. I built a cross as well, a fuck-off big cross about as big as that wall, and I used to get on it at the start of a gig. And I’d have this really sad music and eerie lights, and then the music would just go ‘vvvstp’ and turn into Chas ‘N’ Dave, and I’d start dancing.”

He wasn’t booked for Harvest Festivals.

Noel - “And I used to have a water-pistol as well. So if anyone heckled I’d just squirt ‘em until they were soaked. ‘Don’t Fuck With The Lord’. I used to tell normal jokes, and make no reference to the fact that I was Jesus. I’m over that stage of my life now. I couldn’t grow a beard though so I had to paint one on, and it used to melt under the lights. So by the end of the gig I used to look like a deranged Jesus with brown juice going down his neck. It was a bit frightening for the children.”

I can see why that might be. And so onto…

me - “Did you ever take the colour off Smarties with hot water ?”

I used to dye the snow outside my bedroom window with Smartie juice. Noel didn’t.

Noel - “I used to suck ‘em.”

me - “That’s not the same thing.”

Noel - “I used to suck them until they were all white, let them dry, and then put them back in the packet, and show my mum the Smarties with no colour on them.”

Like little albinos awaiting their digestion. But now they would be safe from the boy. For he does not eat the wicked cocoa bean...

Noel - “I can’t eat chocolate - I don’t eat chocolate. I’ve got a bad liver.”

Poor baby. Chewits are fine though, if you ever feel the urge to feed him. And now, a Boosh question. Because, when Noel isn’t being funny by himself, he’s also being funny with Julian Barratt. ( That bloke off the Metz adverts, yes yes. ) As one half of The Mighty Boosh. As you may know. ( As I’ve already mentioned it. As have others. ) They met through comedy - Noel used to go and see him play, and marvel at their sense-of-humour similarities. Much like Bob Mortimer did to that Vic Reeves. So then. Noel.

me - “Would you advocate stalking your favourite comedian in the hope that you get to form an award-winning double-act with them and become world famous ?”

Karen - “Say no. SAY NO. Anyone who stalks me is a freak and should be shot.”

me - “But they might have exactly the same sense of humour as you and together you could sweep the world...”

Noel - “People kind of say that I stalked Julian.”

me - “You’ve kind of said it.”

Noel - “It’s a rumour. He stalked me.”

Oh really ?

Noel - “No, what happened was that I went to see him a couple of times because I liked him. And he phoned me up and said ‘d’you wanna work with me?’ Because he saw me and went; ‘Jesus CHRIST ! He’s like a KING ! I’d better harness his talent somehow, I’m getting a bit old now...’ He just liked what I did and I liked what he did, so we made love, and then said ‘let’s write!’.”

( N.B. Not all of the above is to be taken as literal fact. But the gist is there. )

Noel - “We made love in a way that a man and a small boy make love. Sorry. It’s gone a bit sexual.”

Well let’s wrap it up quickly then. The conversation, let’s wrap up the conversation...

me - “Do you see the future as one with an endless sea of your faces on t-shirts of small children in playgrounds wearing small blue shorts...?”

Noel - “I’d like that, yeah. Teenage girls with my face on their breasts. Is that what you want me to say ?”

Ummm...

me - “Well it could be one big face or two small faces just grinning happily in the knowledge of where they are.”

Either way he’s happy.

Noel - “I’d like it. Everyone would like it... I think everyone should be made to wear body-suits which are collages of my face.”

Yes. Oh yes. Indeedy.

‘N’ if you’re Boosh inclined, you’ll love THIS…

Last revised: 26/07/01