Noel Fielding & Hugh Bonneville: How Dick Turpin sparked a Mighty Boosh reunion

ODE

The stars are teaming up (sort of) for Apple TV's new highwayman comedy, 'The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin'. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00 Pleasure to meet you both. Congratulations on the show. History and surrealism and like

00:05 dick jokes, like what more? What more?

00:08 It's a heady mix to be sure.

00:10 I think following the success of kind of horrible histories and what they've done over the last

00:13 few years, that's the kind of obvious comparison I guess some people would make. For me it

00:18 had elements of kind of Maid Marian's Merry Men and like Blackhead of the Second, but

00:23 that might be showing my age somewhat.

00:25 I'd forgotten about Maid Marian.

00:27 That was such a great show.

00:29 How would you guys sell it? How would you guys describe it to people?

00:33 Oh my gosh. I think if you're a student of 18th century history, don't watch this because

00:38 you'll be spitting tacks. But it is, it's just a fun juxtaposition of basically contemporary

00:45 gags set against an 18th century backdrop. And it's loosely affiliated to someone called

00:53 Dick Turpin and a couple of other real people who existed. But I think the clues in the

00:56 title are these are the completely made up adventures of Dick Turpin. Would you agree?

01:01 Absolutely. And I think we were shooting for Princess Bride and Holy Grail and that kind

01:06 of thing really. We sort of wanted to create a world that was filmic and action packed,

01:14 but also keep the comedy quite quirky and unusual, give it a tone that was its own.

01:20 So it felt like we were... Blackadder's a difficult one in comedy because you want to

01:29 use that or cite that as an influence, but you don't because it's perfect. It's so funny.

01:35 You don't want to say, "Oh, we were shooting for Blackadder because we were shooting for

01:39 one of the greatest comedies of all time." And same with Python. They're so good. But

01:45 I feel like the flavour and the atmosphere of those... Actually, Blackadder won with

01:50 Peter Cook in it. You know that one?

01:51 Yeah, yeah. When he had the bowl cut.

01:53 Yeah, there's something about that that we were trying to...

01:56 That's interesting. There's slightly more dark and medieval...

02:00 A little bit, yeah. We were sort of... And the Princess Bride, we really were big fans.

02:05 One of the greatest.

02:06 These are all our starting points and then when you come to write your first joke, you

02:09 have to throw all those things away.

02:10 Basically, you're going to be Dick Jokes.

02:12 Which is sort of the real highlight. I know it doesn't go for it. I should clarify for

02:17 people watching this, it's not just a show full of Dick Jokes.

02:19 Yeah.

02:20 But then you use them sparingly, but when they come... There's another one.

02:25 It's almost impossible not to write Dick Jokes.

02:29 Also really love those scenes with yourself and your son's called Christopher and you're

02:33 Jonathan which is the reverse of me and my dad. So it just gives me a little smile.

02:38 Cute. This way of working... Because you're no stranger to comedy. You've been involved

02:43 with some of the best British TV comedies and you've obviously done a lot of film as

02:49 well. But you do have a kind of an air of... There's a suaveness to Hugh Bonneville. There's

02:54 a seriousness. There's a reason you're in a lot of films where you are an authoritative

02:59 figure. When you turn up on set and you are surrounded by this kind of level of British

03:05 comedy of people who want to have fun and be very silly, a lot of them know each other

03:08 and have done for many years. How do you slot into that? How comfortable do you feel as

03:13 soon as you put on the outfit and the lip you're like, "I'm one of the guys"?

03:17 Because it is such a cauldron of British comedy, some might call it a clique, I basically felt

03:23 completely ostracised and I had to stay in my trailer until Noel allowed... He'd knock

03:30 twice. It was a certain rhythm to the knock. He'd be knock, knock, knock. So I knew it

03:33 was him and it was safe to come out. And he'd escort me to the set and keep me away from

03:37 these chuckling hordes of people all laughing at each other's jokes. And I'd turn up and

03:42 do my line. I was a straight man basically. And then I'd be ushered off set and they'd

03:46 carry on cackling together. So they are a great club and they all do bounce off each

03:52 other brilliantly and it's a world I don't understand.

03:55 You know what? When Hugh came in and did the read-through, the first line he read everyone

04:01 was just like, "This guy's great. He's so good." And it's like, comedians basically

04:07 are always after the joke. That's all they're interested in. It's such a perverse...

04:11 I'm just after the truth.

04:12 He's searching for the truth and we're just searching to undercut the truth. That's it

04:17 really.

04:18 I think it's important people watch an episode before they watch this interview now just

04:20 to understand how ridiculous we're talking about. And speaking of some of the people

04:25 in this, there is a bit of a Boosh reunion. There's a number of you there. I imagine that

04:31 was a great and fun and free and exciting experience to do that. But is this as close

04:37 as we're going to get to a Boosh reunion do you think?

04:40 Never say never.

04:41 Or at least do you think, "Oh, maybe there's something left in the tank."

04:44 We've always sort of left it open really. The Boosh is really a double act and interesting

04:50 love. Hugh had a very similar sort of clown status to Julian and a similar energy to Julian.

04:57 Julian often plays a very good pompous character who...

05:03 And he's also very, very good looking. So I can see where you're going with this.

05:06 Tall, good looking, suave.

05:09 It's difficult with me and Julian because if I'd have... I don't know. I feel like if

05:13 we do something together it should be... Because of what we've done in the past, it's difficult

05:17 for him to come in and just play a character. We'd have to do something together.

05:21 He's more than an Easter egg.

05:24 Yeah. And there's so... It was 20 years of our lives, like a marriage.

05:29 And it's so much like... It happens in cinema so much. There's so many reboots and regurgitated

05:36 films, which sometimes work beautifully. Is there a bit of a fear of that coming up?

05:41 Yes, absolutely. We did a radio show that we were very proud... We did three Edinburgh

05:46 shows and we really loved those shows. And we did a radio show and we did three TV shows.

05:51 We did two big tours. We did a book. We did a festival. We did an album. All of those

05:55 things that we did though, we were very proud of. And there wasn't really... We didn't feel

06:00 like... We didn't put anything out that we weren't really proud of. So if we just left

06:06 it there, I feel like that catalogue's good.

06:09 I'm sensing there's a bit of a yes. I think there's a bit of a hint of a comeback.

06:14 It's a gamble, right?

06:15 You just mentioned all the great things that you've done. You must be thinking, "Well,

06:18 I can't wait."

06:19 It's a gamble to come back now as well.

06:21 Oh, go on.

06:22 Maybe. I feel like it'd be great to do a live show because I think it would be fun. But

06:26 we always wanted to do a film and we never quite managed that. So you never know.

06:30 See, there we go. And we've set upon the next project nicely. And any roles Julian can't

06:36 pick up, Hugh can pick up whilst he's busy.

06:39 Hugh and I have to play Batman and Robin before that.

06:42 Sorted. In a sort of Del Boy, Only Fools kind of way.

06:47 Gents, pleasure to meet you. Great to make your acquaintance at long last. I really enjoyed

06:51 the show. I've seen two episodes, but it's really kind of... It's one of those life affirming,

06:54 a bit of silliness for a couple of hours.

06:57 It's a dark world at the moment.

06:58 It's a dark world.

06:59 It's nice to have an escape.

07:00 It's more dick. And with that, gents, I will wrap up. Cheers, guys.

07:06 Thank you.

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