Riverside Theatre
Friday, April 24, 2015
Noel Fielding was welcomed on to the Riverside Theatre stage amid deafening cheers and applause worthy of a rock star. With both nights of the Perth leg of his tour almost completely sold out, undoubtedly half of Perth’s Noel Fielding fans were in the room and were completely ready for whatever bizarreness he would throw at us.
Fielding eased us in with stand-up, about being afraid of the enormous spiders we have in Australia and how one drove his taxi from the airport. Then things got a bit strange with a song about milk. And the story about his dream where he was a teabag was as fantastical as you could want from one half of The Mighty Boosh, and we couldn’t help but go on the abstract ride with him because it was so incredibly funny.
The show moved from stand up to comedy sketches where Fielding’s brother Mike and Luxury Comedy actor Tom Meeton were introduced as various characters, such as the mysterious bird, Hawkeye, and Fielding’s understudy, Antonio Banderas. Fans of Luxury Comedy – Fielding’s latest TV gig – were in for a treat as favourite characters from the show made an appearance, such as Sgt Boombox, Fantasy Man and Joey Ramone and there were several interludes from Mighty Boosh favourite The Moon and his evil alter ego The Dark Side of the Moon.
A running joke during the show was Fielding, at particularly ridiculous moments, shouting out, ‘I’m 41!’ and ‘This isn’t a job’, a reminder that he is very self aware that what is does for a living is totally bizarre. And this was apparent through the show as he and the other actors often giggling and struggling to keep a straight face at the strange performances they were enacting. But this served only to draw us closer into the show, as if Fielding was sharing a secret with us: we all know this is crazy, but we’re going to keep pretending because it’s hilarious. Fielding’s “job” was to take us away from reality for two hours into true escapism. Packed full of costumes, animation, music, dancing, audience interaction, ridiculousness, fantasy and utter hilarity, An Evening With Noel Fielding was complete entertainment, and Fielding as the comedic rock god he is, performed his job perfectly.
LUCY RUTHERFORD
