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Noel Fielding

Date of birth: 30-11-1972

Although primarily known as one half of The Boosh with Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding has also maintained an independent career as a stand-up.

He has appeared at Montreal's Just For Laughs festival in 1998, and made stand-up appearances on Channel 4 and Five before finding success with The Boosh.

The double-act made their debut at the 1998 Edinburgh and Sydney festivals, earning them the Perrier best newcomer award, and returned to Edinburgh in 1999, when they were nominated for the main award, 2000 and 2001. The 2000 show, Autoboosh, won the equivalent Barry award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

The Boosh was picked up by Radio4 in 2001 for a series which won the first and only Douglas Adams Award for Innovative Comedy Writing. The show transferred to BBC Three for two series in 2004 and 2005, giving them a cult success that enabled them to embark on a major nationwide tour in 2006.

For his solo work, he won the Time Out Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, while his first live solo show Voodoo Hedgehog was nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002.

His TV performances as an actor include The IT Crowd, Nathan Barley and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace – all for Channel 4.

Can Noel Fielding’s Dick Turpin comedy be salvaged?

Producers 'looking to make a special' from footage already shot

Producers of Noel Fielding’s abandoned Dick Turpin comedy are hoping to salvage enough footage to be able to make an hour-long special, it has been suggested.

Work on Apple TV+’s big-budget escapade was halted last week when the star left the set because of ill-health.

But with about three-quarters of the series in the can, programme-makers Big Talk hope they have enough to be able to rescue something from the shoot, The Sun reports today.

The newspaper was the first to report that production on The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin had been wound up when 51-year-old Fielding failed to return to work after the Christmas holidays.

And today it quotes an unnamed TV insider saying: ‘It’s now considered to be something of a salvage operation, although it’s not clear whether they have enough [material] to do anything with.

‘The creators sank millions into making the show and it was around 70 to 80 per cent filmed by the time the axe fell. So it would now be pretty galling to see what they have go entirely to waste.’

It’s not clear whether any of the sections they’d filmed between October and December included the guest stars, who were said to have included Jason Isaacs, Dawn French and Miranda Richardson.

The first season of six episodes also starred Duayne Boachie, Ellie White and Marc Wootton as members of Turpin’s Essex gang and Dolly Wells as Eliza Bean, the writer chronicling his adventures. It was broadly welcomed by critics with aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reporting a 87 per cent approval rating.

Cast and crew working on the second series are said to be considering legal action after finding themselves unexpectedly out of a job.

Fielding also wrote the show, alongside Richard Naylor and Jon Brittain.

Read Chortle’s review of season one here.

Published: 23 Jan 2025