The Mighty Boosh Live
It was brilliant! Absolutely fantastic!
They had said in an interview that it would be difficult to think of material for this second live show, but they really pulled it off! It was a completely different style to the first show, which was stand up and then what was basically a long, live episode that incorporated many characters from the show. To be perfectly honest, I would say the the first show was better because of the style and the general humour.
The humour hasn’t changed much in the Boosh, it’s as good as ever, I just think that the style in which it’s presented has lowered itself to please the modern trends of young people. I don’t want to say they sold out… but I much prefered them when they were little known about. Series 1 + 2 were classics along with the first live show… but it has in someways lost it’s appeal now that everybody loves them.
Things like how they now acknowledge crimping by name, whereas they would always just spontaneously go into one with no explanation whatsoever. The carrying forward of the board of shaman I didn’t like, I think Tony Harrison was only really good for a one-off joke. Though having said that, there was a costume malfunction in the live show for Tony Harrison which was really funny as Noel was improvising loads of great material. I also think the comedy was more abstract and random in the original series’, with references to older celebrities, like Brian Ferry (who, funnily enough, someone came dressed as), and more improvisation, which was obvious as Noel frequently stops himself from laughing.
Anyway, more about the show… They had the official ‘Boosh Band’ with them which was quite good as they did a few songs from the show; Nanageddon, Charlie, Eels and probably a couple more… They had small slots for ‘guests’ to come on which was basically a host of characters from the show, some funny, some not so. Rich Fulcher came on as some random East European comedian which made no sense whatsoever and wasn’t funny whatsoever. The first half ended with the Hitcher doing the eels song with the Boosh Band. Noel came down and walked through the aisles which was awesome, cause we were like 10 feet away from him!
Someone dressed as Old Gregg stood up and hugged him, the he commented something like, ‘I thought you were gonna stab me! Though thinking about that, it would be the perfect crime as there are about 52 people dressed as Old Gregg in here. When the police asked what he looked like, it’d be like “I dunno, he had seaweed for hair”.’ That’s what I love about improvisation, it’s often as good, if not better, than the scripted stuff.
The second half of the show was a ‘play’ done by Howard which gradually goes horribly wrong. They eventually break out into a massive crimp which was pretty good. Then I forget how this comes about, but the Honey Monster walks on stage and they proceed to grab him and eventually blow off his head with a massive Jean Claude Jaquettie hairdryer. I loved how they kept saying hateful remarks about sugar puffs and the honey monster. Then they had Tony Harrison shagging the honey monster’s head saying, ‘Take it! Take it like you take other people’s ideas you plagiaristic wanker!’ That was probably one of the funniest moments of the show.
I don’t know what else I can really say apart from, if you’re going to see it it’s gonna be great (also I’ve probably spoiled it for you), and if you’re not seeing it, make sure to get the DVD when it comes out!
Oh yea… I added Naan Bread as a tag, better mention that real quick. Someone, maybe two people, came dressed as the Naan Bread from the Boosh. It was funny for about 3 seconds… good idea though, obviously worth mentioning.
The Mighty Boosh
Song: ‘Forgve Durden – For A Dreamer, Night’s The Only Time Of Day’
