- Venue
- Nottingham Trent Arena
- Location
- East Midlands
Migthy Boosh Live in Trent Arena on Friday the 9th of January 2009
Live Performance Or Not Live Performance?
It is in the middle of a crowd of teenage fans I made a path and found my seat in the Trent Arena in Nottingham on Friday the 9th of January. The colourful Mighty Boosh illuminated the start of the New Year with their baroque and surrealist show which revealed the illusion of the stage by interacting with their audience. Projections, screens helping you to follow the action on stage, made this event be viewed only on a screen when you are not seating in the front so is Mighty Boosh Live a Live event?
– Mighty Boosh conjugates theatre, music, dance and video-projections on stage. They are diverse and polyvalent, always trying to put all these elements together in order to realise a very baroque and surrealist event.
Their 5 main characters Howard Moon (Julian Barratt), Vince Noir (Noel Fielding), Naboo the shaman (Michael Fielding), Bollo the gorilla (Dave Brown) and Bob Fossil interpreted by Rich Fulcher (changing from a manager of a zoo to the manager of the club The Velvet Onion). These are the basics of Mighty Boosh and each apparition of them provoked ovations, whistles and comments from the audience. The five actors played different roles and the audience recognized on stage the pink bladder Tony Harrison, the green Hitcher, the Moon, the Crack Fox but also Eleanor desperately attempting naughty sexual assaults on Howard. The audience could also discover new characters such as Sunflash inspired by Mike Hodges’ characters, Flash and the bird men, from his movie Flash Gordon (1980). He seems to be a typical baroque character as he looks like Icarus with his white wings and his arrogance. His friend, Booblay is a robot which has been created to give pleasure to men, both of them are coming from the future. The arrogance of Sunflash can qualify the Mighty Boosh spirit who defies any classical rules and definitions attributed to theatre. It is also theatre of the excess, of costumes (as all these characters are suited in very colourful clothes), of make-up, of set and props, of gests, different tones of voices… That is why I call this a baroque theatre, primarily insisting on the visual. It is also gifted with a surrealist tone with its free associations so defined by Andre Breton, its nonsense, no-linearity… Even if Howard planned to make a play as Chekov he only manages an absurd one on the destruction of the planet and its survivors. The projection on the cyclorama behind the actors projected psychedelic images as we could see in series B films in the 70’s. It was a real bombardment of bright colours which made you focus less on the stage. Moreover, as you could not really see the stage if you were not in the first seats in front of it, you could focus more easily on the cyclorama. The actors were squandered by the screen behind them, making their acting less impressive and less powerful. This was particularly unpleasant. The performance of the actors could also be defined as surrealistic when for example Noel Fielding forgot his lines and had to leave the stage to look at the script as he explained straight after in a laugh and in front of a disconcerted Julian Barratt who tried to re-launch the show. In this way we can say it is a baroque and surrealist event which also demonstrates the theatrical machinery, its praxis.
– They reveal and disturb the theatrical illusion and the identification, always talking to the audience, trying to chat with him, calling him.
They are crossing the “quatrième mur”, the barrier between the audience and the stage. Also they reproduce and use series B movies and images. These movies, such as Flash, with a dialogue which intends (or not) to support the action and its special effects which makes us take distance with the action as it breaks the illusion. But “Wha’ever”! The comic of Mighty Boosh resides in this disruption. They play constantly with it, as in the second part of the show where Howard introduces his play. A play in a play, a real mise-en-abîme but even doubled as we know Howard and Vince are fictional characters. But we believe in this fiction, we believe in Howard and Vince, we would like to be invited to their parties and see their crimp in the Velvet Onion! That is what is troubling with Mighty Boosh. This seems to work better on television as you can feel so disconnected with what is going on, on stage, as the Trent Arena is so huge, trying to see a screen rather than the head of a neighbour, or choosing which screens I can better see. I am sorry but I wanted to enjoy their performance in live, not like on television and what did I do? Mostly I watched a screen!!! Even with their attempt with interacting with the audience I still think I have not really seen a live performance of Mighty Boosh…
– They did not hesitate to require some kind of investment from the audience from recognising their previous song such as I love the chosen one or Future sailor and their very joyful and higly appreciated Bouncy ( Bouncy Bouncy Oh such a good time, Bouncy Bouncy shoes all in a line…), through to making you perform! The first apparition of Bob Fossil on stage was ambitious and revealed the collective envy from the audience to interact more with the stage. Everybody stood and danced according to the choreographic guidance of the Velvet Onion manager. So the audience combined various movements such as “feeding the chicken”, “picking the sandwiches and eating them” or “where were you last night” as if you were a husband or a wife interrogating your partner… When he disappeared the warm atmosphere fell down straight away and everybody rushed to sit down… The other noticeable interaction came from the arrival of the green Hitcher (Noel Fielding), who came down the stage to mix with the audience (followed very closely by a bodyguard!). This created agitation in the audience and teenagers nearly fainted when he approached them. Noel Fielding played with the audience in hugging another green Hitcher from the public… These moments made the performance more interesting as it changed from the television show…
So Mighty Boosh Live was a Live Performance Or Not?
The huge amount of fans all over the UK led to the group of actors booking arenas instead of theatres and small private spaces where it could have been maybe more suitable for them to perform and interact more with the audience. But should we reproach them for being too popular? The answer does not need to be said… The lack of live performance is compensated for by the baroque and surrealist stage they introduce and which is surprisingly accepted by a large audience, the fact they play with the praxis, revealing the stage itself, and try to interact with their audience in so far as they can, restricted by their performance venues…
