Journey Of The Childmen: The Mighty Mighty Boosh Tourdoc
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Who Are The Mighty Boosh?
Are you a Boosh lover? Do you even know who The Mighty Boosh are? Sit down, children, and I’ll begin…
The Mighty Boosh started life as a BBC Radio 4 comedy series and a one-off special radio episode. Starring and written by Noel Fielding (elderly Goth with Velcro hair) and Julian Barratt (Sean Bean with a beergut), it is a surreal and amusing experience with very little in the way of internal logic, never mind reference to reality or common sense. Transferring to television in 2004, three very successful seasons have been made and the DVDs are now available on Amazon.
On 6th November 2009, as part of the Leeds Film Festival, the tour documentary Journey Of The Childmen was shown at Leeds Town Hall, part of a showing of three interrelated Boosh-relevant films. The documentary was filmed in 2008 and 2009 and shows elements of The Mighty Boosh’s live tour around the UK and Ireland.
I’m not generally that big a fan of tour docs: there are just too many moments in them regarding, oh, sandwiches (tick), socks (tick), beerguts (tick), the deficiencies of riders and food on tour in general (tick)… Well, I’m sure you’ve seen a tour doc before. You know that of which I speak. Tour docs are too much like LIFE and insufficiently like art. They’re also frequently too much like Spinal Tap. The latest X Factor winner/loser could make a tourdoc, and it would still bring the Tap to mind.
Get Yourself Some Mighty Mighty Boosh Linkage, People!
Boosh: Men In Hats
Oh No, It's A Boosh Tour Doc
Well, The Mighty Boosh tour doc is not different from the general run of tour docs in these respects. (Even a man onstage in a gorilla suit is only slightly out of the ordinary.) However when one has a special affection for a band or comedy act, one can forgive them even as they display all the mundanities and lack of glamour they should never really admit to. (Noel Fielding is caught at some alarmingly unflattering angles. He is a man who should really only ever leave the house in the company of his own personal cinematographer. It's not too much to expect from a legend of mod style.)
There are moments worth sticking it out for (and it’s not a
short film. Eighty-two minutes,
people. Crikey. Plus too many art-schoolly moments with
funny effects and diffused lighting.
Pack it in with the pretty lights already.) My own personal fave is Noellie on the tour bus, second-hand copy
of ‘The Minor Works of Milton For An Englishman’ in hand, going through it with
a marker pen. Yep, EDITING Milton, with
pursed lips and swingeing disapproval.
It’s funny, trust me. Brings Joyce Grenfell to mind for some reason...
Go check it out, you’ll have good times too. Most of the fangirlies will swoon at the final scenes of the end of the tour, where everyone blubs and makes their eyeliner run. (Except Julian. He’s a hard man. A hairy man. A Yorkshireman. It makes a lass proud.)
