It's been a while since Noel Fielding did anything
particularly substantial, and from the look of his latest 'comedy' vehicle it
was probably for the best. Luxury Comedy appears to be some sort of sketch show
made following the instructions to a Blue Peter project whilst tripping on
salvia. The only hint of luxury you're likely to note from this show is that
you don't have to expend much energy laughing whilst watching it, because there
don't seem to be any jokes.
The show seems to
revolve around Noel and his staff living in a tree. Andy Warhol is his cleaner,
and doesn't look to approve of most of Noel's work, so is probably the only
borderline intelligent character in the world. As Noel talks with characters
who are presumably supposed to be quirky but just come off as odd, jokes are
laboured into the ground until they have to be taken off screen and
resuscitated, during which time the action cuts away to another of his oh so
delightfully stupid characters. One is a bright yellow police sergeant with a
talking knife wound, another is a chocolate finger who used to be in the army
and sings about his wife being dead, another is a man with a shell for a head
who dances in a kitchen (this one seems to assume that seeing a man with a
shell for a head dance counts as a joke, and everybody is fine with that).
These secondary stories are no more interesting than the primary self indulgent
ramblings, and everybody involved comes off as being as two dimensional as the
cardboard and poster paint backgrounds which are probably supposed to add to
the show's quirkiness but mainly show a lack of real effort.
The main problem-
other than the almost complete absence of any proper jokes- is that everything
seems so bloody pretentious, so deliberately strange and quirky that there
isn't a single thing to ground the show and give any point of reference for the
audience. Not a single thing in the half hour slot can be related to or
understood because it deliberately doesn't make any sense. It goes beyond
surrealism and beyond absurdity all the way into complete nonsense territory.
Juxtaposing ALL the things (!) is no more creative or funny than mixing up
jigsaw puzzles so the images look interesting but no longer make sense. The
fact it is so random give the impression that Noel developed the show entirely
by using a random number generator (or possibly Seventh Sanctum) to create all
of his characters so they'd be as bizarre as possible and then made a comedy
series around it.
Noel Fielding's
Luxury comedy is like watching a transmission from an alien civilisation which
has been translated into English, so as we can see how inferior our competition
is and continue to celebrate having the best television content in the galaxy.
Except we don't. Not now anyway (thanks Noel!)
Further points of
criticism would be the song that has
uninteresting lyrics, tune, and no jokes in it, the sets that look like
they were built by a drunk five year old, and the inclusion of The Moon from
The Mighty Boosh in the only scene in which I actually gave out a laugh, as he disappointingly
reveals that he doesn't feature in the show beyond this point.
If you insist on
watching this show I would give the following options for making it through
without either falling asleep or sustaining severe brain damage:
-Turn off the sound, and put on something more interesting
in the background, and pretend this is just a trippy, very long music video.
Try Pink Floyd, Locust Toybox, or Toxic Lipstick for starters.
-Play a drinking game where everybody has to drink every
time a joke falls flat. This may be difficult, as it's not always easy to tell
which bits were supposed to be jokes, but to make things simpler just drink
every time a character enters the shot. Within twenty minutes you'll surely be
dead and free of this masturbatory shitfest.
-Pretend that this actually is a transmission from an alien
civilisation as suggested earlier. Take notes on the various species on show
and determine their weaknesses for when we inevitably invade, and take their
land and womenfolk (who are just as annoying as the menfolk, and must be
swiftly put down anyway).
-Change the channel.
In conclusion I cannot find anything with which I can truly
recommend watching Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy in any fashion. If nothing
else I suppose it is visually interesting. Actually let me rephrase that.
It is visually interesting.
Nothing else.
I would advise that instead of watching Luxury Comedy you
instead watch the Singing Detective on BBC4, and although I know nothing about
it I find the premise of a singing detective to be far more original and
interesting than all of Noel Fielding's imaginary friends put together.
