Noel Fielding

Noel Fielding (born 21 May 1973) is an English artist, comedian and actor. He is best known for his role as Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh, which he co-created and writes with fellow English comedian, Julian Barratt, and as team captain on the BBC music panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Noel Fielding in 2006

Quotes

HermAphroditeZine, Autumn 1999

• [When asked if he has a favorite woodland creature]

The common shrew. The Northern Root Vole is quite good, too. [...] I like - what am I into at the moment? I like Flying Foxes. They just fly around and hang on trees. You’re not supposed to touch them though because you get disease.”

• [When asked if he varies the animals in his comedy depending on where he performs]

[No,] I tried it in Montreal and it died on its arse. But I like English things. I think English animals and forests are really cool. I like English gardens. I like the idea of the squirrel. I like moths, because they’re so tatty. They’re just so English. Crap butterflies. I like crap animals. Mammals that are tiny and you never see them because they’re rubbish. If you see a documentary about them you just turn it over. If it’s about frogs you think ‘aaah noooo’, but if it’s about hyenas you watch it. [...] British mammals, I'm bringing them back in.

• I think I should be in a [Disney animated] film called ‘Space Shrews’. Where I go to space. With a load of shrews. And nothing really happens. We just get out and have a lolly and then come back. But it’ll be a musical [...] the ship will be built out of my own hair.

• I don’t think I’d have done comedy if I was born eighty years ago [...] I’d have been a lord. Shooting people that were on my land [...] With a wig, yeah. And some crisps.

• [When suggested he could have invented crisps] I couldn’t have invented crisps. [...] I don't really want to be known as the man who invented crisps. [...] I invented apples. [...] I invented pandas, and caps. I invented soil.

• [When asked if he could think of a cure for a dog who eats soil]
  • I'll sleep with her. I’m a special kind of vet - people bring the animals in, and I sleep with them. Do you have any sick animals that need some time with a vet? [...] What I was saying was that I was going to start a vet practice. People would bring me their sick animals and I’d sleep with them. Turtles. Parakeets. I’d give parakeets blow-jobs. I’d go around the zoo, like James Herriot... saying ‘Giraffes? Really? Bring them to me.’

• I had a garter snake named Clayton.

• You must have stuck a finger up your arse at least once.

• In Edinburgh? I quite like the City Cafe. Because you never get served in there. And I like the idea that you can go in there for three hours and still not get your order. I think that’s quite funny. And then when you say ‘Can I have some food - I’m wasting away,’ they have the audacity to tut at you. When there’s only four of you in there. Fuckers. They should all be shot in the face. Sorry. I’m only joking. And I’m really tired.

• [When asked if he used to go onstage dressed as Jesus with a watercolour beard]
  • That is true. I used to dress up as Jesus. That’s what I first did onstage. I built a cross as well, a fuck-off big cross about as big as that wall, and I used to get on it at the start of a gig. And I’d have this really sad music and eerie lights, and then the music would just go ‘vvvstp’ and turn into Chas ‘N’ Dave, and I’d start dancing [...] And I used to have a water-pistol as well. So if anyone heckled, I’d just squirt ‘em until they were soaked. ‘Don’t Fuck With The Lord’. I used to tell normal jokes, and make no reference to the fact that I was Jesus. I’m over that stage of my life now. I couldn’t grow a beard though so I had to paint one on, and it used to melt under the lights. So by the end of the gig I used to look like a deranged Jesus with brown juice going down his neck. It was a bit frightening for the children.

• I used to suck [Smarties] until they were all white, let them dry, and then put them back in the packet and show my mum the Smarties with no colour on them.

• [When asked if he would advocate stalking one's favourite comedian in the hope that one gets to form an award-winning double-act with them and become world famous]
  • People kind of say that I stalked Julian. It's a rumour. He stalked me. No, what happened was that I went to see him a couple of times because I liked him. And he phoned me up and said, 'D'you wanna work with me?’ Because he saw me and went, ‘Jesus Christ! He’s like a king! I’d better harness his talent somehow, I’m getting a bit old now...’ He just liked what I did and I liked what he did, so we made love, and then said ‘let’s write!’ We made love in a way that a man and a small boy make love. Sorry. It’s gone a bit sexual.

• [When asked if he sees the future with people wearing shirts with his face on it]
  • I’d like that, yeah. Teenage girls with my face on their breasts. Is that what you want me to say? [...] I’d like it. Everyone would like it. I think everyone should be made to wear body-suits which are collages of my face.

Q magazine (October 2008)

• I'd like to punch out a really old lady. There'd be no repercussions.

QI (November 2015)

• I've always had my suspicions about moss.