A new brush with the Boosh

Exhibitionist at work: Noel Fielding photographed by Nobby Clark
2 February 2013

Comedy being the new rock ’n’ roll is an old chestnut and one that’s not very funny if you’re a sorry stand-up getting heckled at a working men’s club in Bridlington.

However, for as strikingly handsome and weird-headed a star as Noel Fielding, it certainly has rock ’n’ roll benefits. The hard-partying, groupie-enjoying Mighty Boosh star is to commit the ultimate rock ’n’ roll act of largesse as he and collaborator Julian Barratt become the first comedy act to put on their own festival.

The day-long Mighty Boosh festival, organised in collaboration with Vince Power of Mean Fiddler, will entertain 30,000 fans at Hop Farm in Kent on 5 July, with Fielding and Barratt topping a bill of their comical and musical mates. The full line-up is yet to be announced, but such is the fervour that the Boosh’s surreal japery inspires, it is likely to sell out fast.

"We’ve never played a music festival before and a comic has never headlined a festival before, so we are seizing the opportunity and doing both," says Fielding. Perhaps Glastonbury — which is still having trouble shifting tickets — should take note.

In the meantime, not content with stealing the thunder from musicians, Fielding is taking more steps into the world of commercial art.

His paintings are the focus of a collaborative exhibition with the veteran celebrity photographer Nobby Clark, which opens tonight at Tania Wade’s gallery-cum-patisserie in Soho.

Fielding’s visual art is not a million miles away from the disturbing world of Nabootique he and Barratt create in the Mighty Boosh and it’s no surprise that his depictions of talking crocodiles, Mick Jagger and disturbing fox-men — Matt Groening meets Hieronymus Bosch — have become highly prized collectibles. For this exhibition, which launches with a suitably A-list-spangled party tonight, Clark has photographed Fielding at his easel. "It’s the only way I can relax," he says.

Nobby Clark Shoots Noel Fielding is at Gallery Maison

Nobby Clark Shoots Noel Fielding
Gallery Maison Bertaux
W1

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