The sophisticatedly silly Mighty Boosh duo has achieved the closest thing to popstar status the comedy world has probably ever seen. To celebrate (shamelessly plug?) the release of the superb new Mighty Boosh Special Edition Box Set, we got our crimp on with Howard Moon, AKA the “dark, fractured and broken” half of the duo, AKA Julian Barratt, on the line from London after a Stateside visit.

How was the whirlwind American tour?
It was… a sort of whirlwind. We didn’t plan to do a show out there, we just planned to do some DJ sets and do some press for the DVDs that were coming out. We got to New York, had a couple of days, and we kept bumping into people on the street saying, “We’re looking forward to the show!” We were like, we’re not doing a show, and they seemed very disappointed, and we realised we had to do a show.

So we had two days in New York of just panicking and trying to write a show. We sort of cobbled bits and pieces from the old shows together and fashioned a makeshift show for the Bowery Ballroom in New York. It went well. There were loads of people queuing up around the block. We didn’t really know what to expect from them – if people were going to watch standing cross-armed. But they were just the same as the English audiences.

Did you feel there was a bit of renewed pressure on you, performing for a new audience?
A little bit yeah. [pause] Sorry, I’m just finishing my breakfast.

Ah. What are you having?
I’m having a baguette. An egg and tomato baguette.

Brilliant.
But yeah, we’d been playing such enormous gigs in England on the tour. Big gigs are an interesting anthropological experience, if you like: you’ve got screens, it’s all about power and energy. But in terms of doing comedy and really feeling like you’re connecting with people, I prefer smaller gigs.
It reminded me of when we first started out, when we would do a show every week – write it that day and perform it that evening pretty much. It had that lo-fi aesthetic, and it never mattered whether it didn’t work or if things fell flat – the energy of it just carried it. So it was like being back doing those gigs ten years ago, which was great, because those were the best times. When you first discover what you do in front of a crowd works, it’s unbeatable.

What was it like harnessing the energy of the live show for the television series?
We sort of felt like we were in a chocolate factory, winning this lottery to go to this incredible wonderland where they’ve built a world and creatures for you. Suddenly you’re inside this thing that you’ve been writing. Walking around the sets for our show when we first made it, there was nothing like it, it was unbelievable. And then you watch the show afterwards and you go, it doesn’t quite work. [laughs]

A lot has been said about you two setting out to be ‘the new Goodies’ – what was it about their show in particular that resonated with you?
It was very influential for us as kids growing up, me watching it with my Dad. It was a cross-generational comedy show. I liked the big jokes, big props, slapstick, very visual comedy; my Dad liked it because there were lots of little jokes in there as well. [Monty] Python obviously was better, but there was a sense of a team of people, a superhero outfit that we liked about the Goodies. Noel and I just wanted that sense of a group of people whose adventures your follow and that absurdist comedy that we liked.

The Boosh seems to have retained some of that cross-generational appeal – what do you think of the Boosh attracting younger fans?
It’s interesting. Sometimes you worry because the show’s quite dark and sexual… though it’s in a pretty innocent way. We’ve had people come up to as at interval at our live shows and say, “I’m here with my child, could you tone down the language?” It’s like, there’s four thousand people here, you idiot. Generally the kids seem to have no problem with it all of course. I think the parents sometimes do.
We meet all the fans, and they seem to genuinely love the world of the Boosh, which I’m a little bit taken back by. It’s quite humbling when you see these kids and people who are into what we do so much. They’re so joyous of their love of it that you can’t help but be won over by it. Sometimes you can get a bit jaded with the whole thing because you’re talking to producers all day long, and when you find yourself in the midst of a world of a deadening bureaucracy, the magic can go out of it – but then you meet a kid who can’t believe they’re talking to you and sort of tells you about their favourite characters and dressing up at parties with friends, you sort of go, right, so that’s why we’re doing it. It’s quite amazing.

I should probably disclose at this point that I went to a Boosh party as Howard Moon.
[laughs] That’s the worst character to dress up as. The most boring.

Yeah, a moustache and a hat.
It’s easily done, yeah.

But on the subject of your fans, what about the ones that send you hampers and make YouTube tribute videos for you? Does the extreme fandom get creepy?
Yeah, it does, but I don’t go there. There’s lots of things online that I don’t bother with. It’s hard enough to maintain this energy to continue writing without reading all these mad people on the Internet who are so horrible and by turns so praising in a way that’s borderline insane. There’s probably a couple of serial killers there.

The Python guys became entrenched in their writing partnerships – do you feel the same way about your partnership with Noel?
Not really. Because Boosh has got such a big profile, people thing you’re having an affair if you work with other people. But I do have a very particular way of writing with Noel: it’s very productive and comes easy to us. It’s not a struggle to write. It’s a struggle to structure sometimes but not to come up with the ideas. We go into a room and it just comes out.

We don’t spend too much time socially these days, because I’ve got a family. Noel lives in the night and I live in the morning. There’s actually only about an hour where we’re awake at the same time.

Do you sometimes disagree about what’s funny?
Yeah… [pregnant pause] Yeah.

And then what?
We sort of just muddle through. We try to find something we both get excited about. Occasionally we’ll hit a block and sulk for a few days because we’ll feel that the other person is getting all the fireworks in an episode, but then we’ll come together and work it out.

Having done the live circuit, radio and television, it seems like you’ve conquered every medium but film – do you think you’ll get around to making Mighty Boosh: The Movie soon?
Yeah, I think that’s the next thing that we’ll be doing. I never feel like we’ve conquered anything yet. We’ve just done some shows that work. But I think we’d like to try a film because it’s different. We could try to utilise a lot of the visual ideas and musical ideas and ways of doing comedy that we’ve learned on TV and apply them to film. I’m really excited about that. We’re just developing the idea now, and the BBC and maybe some other people will help finance it. That’s the next step, unless somebody steps up with some money to do a TV show, maybe in America or something. We may do that, but it’s probably more likely we’ll just do a film.

How far afield do your aspirations lie beyond comedy? Ricky Gervais for example seems to be distancing himself from that world – might you do the same?
Yeah, I would, totally. It’s a difficult thing with comedy: you get good at it and then you get bored with it, and want to do something serious. Most things I like have a bit of a comic edge to them, but they’re not all-out comedy.
I like the idea of Mel Brooks, who was a consummate comedy performer but then produced The Elephant Man, The Fly, incredibly dark and brilliant films. He knew he could help in projects that weren’t particularly funny. He had the good sense not to be in those films because obviously The Elephant Man with Mel Brooks would be an odd thing. But maybe something like that would be good.
Noel’s done a few serious things but I think comedy is what he wants to do, and I sort of go against it sometimes and find it all a bit ridiculous and would prefer to do a bit of Hamlet or something. It all plays into the Howard Moon character, I guess.

The 7-Disc Mighty Boosh Special Edition Box Set is out now.

* * * * * WIN A MIGHTY BOOSH SPECIAL EDITION BOX SET  * * * * *




Come with us now on a journey through time and space to the world of The Mighty Boosh! This 7 disc Boosh-tastic Special Edition DVD Box Set contains every episodes of Series 1-3 of The Mighty Boosh and as well as over 2.5 hours of bonus material exclusive to this collection.

Thanks to BBC DVD we have six of the Special Edition box sets to give away. To enter, just head to this forum and tell us in 25 words or less, “What’s your favourite Mighty Boosh crimp and why?”

You can view the terms and conditions of the competition online. You have until 5pm on Thursday, August 27 to enter.

Best of luck.