The Velvet Onion

As we’ve reported on numerous occasions, Noel Fielding has been playing a number of secret gigs recently, as a warm-up for his appearance at the Teenage Cancer Trust event on March 23rd. Our newest contributor MrsSladeWild managed to catch his appearance at Amused Moose on Saturday 27th February. This is her review…

Another Amused Moose another Fielding warm-up. Well, my first and I was walking in already knowing most of his material by heart. I went in with a completely open mind however and had absolutely no expectations of being either utterly amazed or completely disappointed.

The other comics were fantastic of course, Mark Dolan, brilliant MC, simply announced 4 great acts to come. We sat through Paul Sinha, so hilarious. Then Sarah Millican, she made my stomach hurt. Then Mr Fielding was announced onto the stage. It was very, very refreshing to see him as a non-headliner for some reason, and it was obviously refreshing for him to not be in front of an audience with any sort of rose-tinted vision of him.

He performed a 20 minute set and the audience lapped it all up, he was very well received. The first half consisted of his usual, “psychic comedy”, then his Christ/Leper banter and ‘I’ve got a face, you’ve got a face’ (Which was to me I must add, I’m still a fan at large of course so this did make me quite happy).

During the first half, as it was all old it can be boring to sit through what you’ve heard so many times but it was very obvious that he was rushing through all that, going through the jokes that he knew would be a guaranteed success whilst he pieced together his new material in his head. The mind-cogs were obviously working overtime. He said himself that some of his new stuff he wrote on the day – Whilst being overlooked and judged by a cat of course – He talked about adopting flamingo’s from London Zoo and about a neighbour of his ‘Monkey Edwards’.

Sound familiar? Well, for tweeters it would. He takes you through some great fantastical anecdotes about them though and you see some fresh Noel Fielding stand-up but still the kind that we know and love. He also talked about his parents when he was a child, who were also his entourage for the night, and also sharing a bath with his ‘partner’. I won’t give anymore away.

There were the odd parts which weren’t very well received, in my opinion this would be the odd little songs he would do, which even for him didn’t really make any sense. He could tell straight off though when something he had done was not-so successful and would say. Kudos to him for doing that and this is what warm-ups are for.

Anyone who will get to see him while he’s still doing these small secret gigs before the big TCT should be chuffed at how he’s doing. Of course, be prepared for a lot of the oldies but as this is the first time I have gone to his stand-up and heard a large percentage of new jokes, I take this as nothing but a sign of good things to come and of a Noel that is working his slipped-down socks off, in between flicking his cat with them.