In 1995, a 27 year old Julian Barratt became the very first winner of the first ever Daily Telegraph Open Mike Award, winning himself a Radio 4 Commission (which is still unused) and £1,000 cash. The final was recorded in Pleasance One during the Edinburgh Festival and screened on Channel 4 later in the year.

Presenter
Boothby Graffoe

Judges
Barry Cryer, Tony Hawks, Chris Pye, Sandi Toksvig

Other Finalists
Lee Mack, Viv Gee, Silky, Jeff Mirza, Daniel Kitson, Nicko, Ambrose Martos

UNNATURAL ACTS - PARAMOUNT (1996)

Unnatural Acts was a sketch show made by and for Paramount Comedy Channel, in which Noel and Julian appeared as a double act, messing about in much the same way as they do. Due to the Paramount channel being found on the outskirts of what was then the fairly inaccessible terrain of satellite television, there isn't a lot of information about this show. However, in Noel and Julian's own words, this show was "fun but a bit weird". While filming Unnatural Acts, Noel and Julian met two other performers working as a double act on the show, Rich Fulcher (who went on to work with them on every aspect of the Boosh) and Sean Cullen (formerly of the award winning music/comedy act Cork and The Juice Pigs). Jason Byrne also appeared.

LONDON SHOUTING - BBC2 (1996)

London Shouting was a television pilot made for the Simon Munnery character Alan Parker Urban Warrior. This 45 minute pilot was written by Simon Munnery and Graham Linehan, earning Munnery the title of Best Television Newcomer at the 1996 British Comedy Awards. It was a studio based sketch show, with Alan shouting at the audience who stood about looking amused and confused in equal parts, interrupted by sketches, and two handed studio based banter between Alan Parker and his ridiculous friend Jason (played by "Time Gentlemen Please" actor Jason Freeman, real name Steve Crosby). The pilot included appearances from Mel Giedroyc (from Mel and Sue) as both an inept eco-warrior and a horrible American television presenter, and Kevin Eldon as a post box surfer. Ridiculously, it was never commissioned for a full series. Julian Barratt appeared with Tim Hope in their characters of The Pod, with Waen Shepherd making a memorable appearance as their virtual tabla player, linked up to a market in Benghal. The Pod played their song "India" (complete with two pairs of rubbish dancers and the lyrics "Kiss the ruby, smell the snake"), as well as taking part in an interview with Alan.

Cast
Simon Munnery, Jason Freeman, Kevin Eldon, Mel Giedroyc, Bill Cashmore, Paul Rider, Peter Serafinowiz, Ricci Harnett, Debbie Williams, Adrian Bunting, The Pod - Julian Barratt, Tim Hope, Waen Shepherd, Anjakina Saga, Super Furry Animals (playing 'Something For The Weekend')

Director
Nick Wood

Producer
John Rowlands

CLUUB ZARATHUSTRA TELEVISION PILOT - CHANNEL 4 (1997)

Julian Barratt is one of the founder members of the critically-acclaimed confrontational Futurist Komedy Kabaret, Cluub Zarathustra, hosted by Simon Munnery as The League Against Tedium. In 1997, Channel 4 commissioned a television pilot from Cluub Z, and the half hour pilot has been circulating around the net ever since. Other members of Cluub Zarathustra include Kevin Eldon (Norm from the Twix adverts, Jam, Nighty Night), Stewart Lee (Fist of Fun, Festival of Fun, TMWRNJ, Jerry Springer the Opera), Sally Phillips (Smack the Pony, Holding the Baby), Roger Mann, Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer the Opera) and Laurie Lixenberg (Jerry Springer the Opera), all of whom appear in the short pilot. The pilot consists of darkly shot sketches and a virtual audience, controlled and abused by The League. The pilot was picked up by Channel 4, and six half hour episodes were commissioned, but unfortunately never got past the scripting stages. The pilot memorably ends with the legend "insert more money". Although Julian was not part of the pilot, a much more indepth look at the pilot can be found *here*.

COMEDY NETWORK - CHANNEL 5 (1997 - 1998)

The Comedy Network was a Channel 5 stand up show, which consisted of up to five acts per half hour episode doing around five minutes of stand up each throughout. Two series were made, and the majority of acts that appeared were managed at the time by Avalon Management, which isn't a particular surprise, as it was one of the first Avalon Television productions. The performers who appeared now reads like a who's who of British stand up comedy, and include a fair smattering of award winners. They were Sean Lock, Ed Byrne, Stewart Lee, Jim Tavare, Boothby Graffoe, Jenny ?clair, Jason Freeman, Adam Bloom, Junior Simpson, Dave Gorman, Neil Bromley, Chris Addison, Kevin Eldon, Tommy Tiernan and Alan Parker Urban Warrior (alias Simon Munnery). Noel and Julian made regular appearances. Julian's appearances mainly consisted of coming at the audience in a variety of guises ("I'm a mother loving liver flipper"), killing geese for the "goose juice", cheating the wind and inviting the audience to suckle on his teats. In one special episode, he also created smoke animals through the medium of Silk Cut. Noel's stories included the grass-smoking cheese plant ("oh, you've verbally raped me") and other woodland based stand up. Director
Peter Orton
Executive Producers
Jon Thoday, Richard Allen-Turner
Producers
James Bobin (series 1), Sam Pinnell (series 2 and 3)

COMEDY NATION - BBC2 (1998 - 1999)

Comedy Nation was a surreal BBC2 sketch show, described at the time of broadcast as an "experimental comedy sketch show". The brief was basically to allow newcomers to appear on telly, try out their crazy ideas, and see what might come of it. In between the disparate and unlinked sketches was a bass-heavy guitar sting separating the different performers. Most characters recurred through the series, and some jokes, like Jason Byrnes' visual puns, appeared more than once in the same episode. Sketches ran for as little as a couple of shouting seconds or ran, like The Pod appearances, for up to five minutes. There were also computer animations, like the 'Des and Alan' sketch based on Des Lynam and Alan Hansen ("I wine 'em, I dine 'em, I Des Lynam") and The Many Deaths Of Norman Spittal - which ran before the many deaths of South Park's Kenny made recurring cartoon death acceptable to all. The show tended to be heavily hit or miss, but due to the speed with which things moved, there tended to always be something good coming up at any given time. Anyone who is now anyone in British television comedy seem to have cut their teeth in this show. Performers included Sacha Baron-Cohen (Ali G), Rhona Cameron, Ronni Ancona, Ricky Grover, James Bachman and The Divine David in the first series, and Sally Philips, Ben Moore, Simon Evans, Kevin Eldon, Julian Barratt, Tim Hope, Waen Shepherd, Simon Munnery (as The League Against Tedium), David Mitchell and Robert Webb in the second series. Julian Barratt and Tim Hope appeared together in sketches revolving around The Pod, and included song performances and some special animated sequences from Tim Hope. Directors
Angela de Chastelai Smith, Gareth Garrivick, Rebecca Martin
Executive Producers
John Plowman, Myfanwy Moore
Producers
Phil Clarke, Karen Rosie, Ali Bryer Carron, Gary Reich

GAS - CHANNEL 4 (1997 - 1998)

Another basic stand up show, Gas was modelled on the same lines as The Comedy Network, with host Lee Mack mucking about both on stage and in the middle of the audience, presenting up to three other stand up acts every week, on a set that blew out exciting steam and smoke in an attempt to attract younger viewers. The performers tended to be a little on the unconventional side, which was one of the appealing features of the show - it was never straightforward stand up or boring observations. There was a certain amount of overlap between Gas and The Comedy Network in terms of performers. Comedians who featured include Noel, Julian, Will Smith, Peter Kay, Chris Addison, Steve Furst (as Lenny Beige), Mike Gunn, Martin Bigpig, Brendan Burns, Andy Robinson, Jason Byrne, Mitch Benn, and Simon Evans. At the end of the last episode, a title card came up announcing the death of host Lee Mack following the recording of the showÖ and then continue to scroll through the names of the stand up clubs he had 'died' in. Director
Stephen Stewart
Producer
Sandie Kirk

EDINBURGH OR BUST (1998) / STAND UP PERRIER (1999) CHANNEL 4

Julian and Noel appeared on Stand Up Perrier following their 1999 Perrier award nomination for Arctic Boosh. Part of the honour of being nominated for a Perrier award includes the opportunity to appear at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, and the two Stand Up Perrier specials followed The Boosh, alongside fellow nominees Ross Noble, Simon Munnery, and Terry Alderton as they prepared for their appearance, as well as covering the run up to the shows. The two main winners that year - Al Murray for the Pub Landlord character (on his third nomination) and Ben and Arn for Best Newcomer, featured in the final show, broadcast in December 1999. Noel and Julian also featured briefly in the 1998 series of Edinburgh or Bust, which was an annual Channel 4 series, following performers exploring their experiences of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Produced & Directed by
Richard Osborne, James Harding, Sally Martin

FESTIVAL OF FUN - CHANNEL 5 (1998 - 1999)

As part of the annual coverage of the Montreal Comedy Festival (the second biggest comedy festival in the world, after Edinburgh but before Melbourne), British television had always stuck with the Just For Laughs series on Channel 4, which mixed routine interviews with current performers and stock festival footage from previous years. However, for the fifteenth and sixteenth year of coverage, the format was completely changed. The programme moved to a co-production between Channel 5 and Paramount, and it was re-christened Festival of Fun, to suit it's hosts Stewart Graham Lee and Richard Keith Herring, formerly of BBC's Fist of Fun. Festival of Fun ran for two series, and in the second series, Rich and Stew battled with their rising hotel bill, Rich's fixation with muffins and Stew's attempts to break in to Hollywood. Tim Vine cruised the streets making vox pops with the locals, and the show featured interviews with the likes of Lee Evans, Dylan Moran and Adam Bloom. Around all of this, Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding teamed up with Sean Cullen to create a series of improvised, surreal sketches as they mooched around the city of Montreal having adventures. These were produced as Noel & Julian's Postcards from Montreal, and usually ended in disaster of some kind, as they took a trip on a boat, climbed the highest building in the world to see a small spider, or just visited the lake. Hosts Stewart Lee, Richard Herring

SWEET (2000)

Sweet is a short film, directed by James Pilkington, which won the Turn Classic Movies Award for short films, and was also nominated for Best Short Film at the BAFTAs in 2000. Noel plays Pete Sweet, who works on a record stall, owns a scooter and two puppies, has a best friend called Stitch (played by Julian) and is currently dating a short, dumpy ginger girl called Poppy. Who is imaginary. She was originally imagined by Pete's mate's Dave's Mum, who had always wanted a girl. Does that explain it for you? The strain of this unusual relationship soon begins to take a toll on Pete and Stitch's friendship, and the film centres around this complicated triangle, and the ethical debate surrounding the etiquette of dating an imaginary girl. The first half of the film can be watched *HERE* but be warned that it cuts out at a very crucial moment! Director
James Pilkington

LOOK AROUND YOU - BBC2 (2000)

Look Around You is based on the schools television programming so beloved in the late 1970s, where school children were strapped down in their seats and made to watch instructive and educational programmes filled with mundane commentary and unnecessary repetition. Writers Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz take these programmes to task, dissecting them from their basic elements and re-building them on entirely false premises, for example revealing the reason why ghosts can whistle or uncovering the largest number in the world. The whole series consisted of 10 minute "modules" that centred around themes ranging from 'water' to 'sulphur' to 'ghosts' to 'brains'. Each episode contained many blink-and-you'll-miss-them appearances from various friends and relatives of the writers, all of which are uncovered and pointed out with great glee on the DVD commentary. Julian appeared in the episode called 'Sulphur', as a teacher sneaking a light for his cigarette from a pupil. He is listed in the credits as "Julian Barratt-Pettifer" not as an obscure reference to the man who used to present Busman's Holiday in the 70s/80s, but because Pettifer is his real name.

Director
Tim Kirkby
Writers & Producers
Robert Popper, Peter Serafinowicz
Executive Producer
Peter Fincham

SURREALISMO - BBC4 (2002)

Another basic stand up show, Gas was modelled on the same lines as The Comedy Network, with host Lee Mack mucking about both on stage and in the middle of the audience, presenting up to three other stand up acts every week, on a set that blew out exciting steam and smoke in an attempt to attract younger viewers. The performers tended to be a little on the unconventional side, which was one of the appealing features of the show - it was never straightforward stand up or boring observations. There was a certain amount of overlap between Gas and The Comedy Network in terms of performers. Comedians who featured include Noel, Julian, Will Smith, Peter Kay, Chris Addison, Steve Furst (as Lenny Beige), Mike Gunn, Martin Bigpig, Brendan Burns, Andy Robinson, Jason Byrne, Mitch Benn, and Simon Evans. At the end of the last episode, a title card came up announcing the death of host Lee Mack following the recording of the showÖ and then continue to scroll through the names of the stand up clubs he had 'died' in. Director
Stephen Stewart
Producer
Sandie Kirk

GAS - CHANNEL 4 (1997 - 1998)

Surrealissimo was a comedy drama produced for the then very new digital BBC channel, BBC4, broadcast on it's launch night in March 2002. It centred around Salvador Dali, the self appointed "Surreal Messiah", and the "trial" of Dali by Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism, who accused Dali of crimes against surrealism. The cast included some of the best British comedy actors working today, starring Stephen Fry as Andre Breton and Ewen Bremner as Dali. Also featured were Mark Gatiss from the League of Gentlemen, Matt Lucas of Little Britain, Vic Reeves and Ben Miller. Obviously as a drama based around the founding fathers of surrealism, the programme contained the same visual elements and style common to surrealist films, giving it a very original and quirky feel not necessarily suitable for all the family. Noel played Gui Rosey, one half of a pair of inseparable "surrealist footsoldiers", the other half of which was played by Julian. The boys spent most of the drama holding hands and finishing each other's sentences. Director/Producer
Richard Curson-Smith
Executive Producer
Richard Fell
Writer
Matthew Broughton

MINT ROYALE - BLUE SONG VIDEO (2002)

The video for Blue Song was directed by the fabulous Edgar Wright Jnr, who has also directed Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. Noel stars as the getaway driver for three bank robbers, played by Julian Barratt, Nick Frost (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead) and Michael Smiley (Spaced). The video was featured on the single for Blue Song, on the Faith & Hope Records / Illustrious Records label). The dialogue is reproduced below:

Noel (N): Is this the place?
Michael (MS): Yep, this is the place.
N: How long?
Julian (JB): Two, three minutes max.
N: Could you be a bit more specific?
Nick (NF): Two and a half to three minutes.
J: Call it two minutes forty five.
N: Two forty fiveÖ (looks through CDs)
MS: No, more 2.54
N: Okay, 2.54 (picks out Mint Royale CD)
NF: Haven't you got a watch?
N: (laughs) I don't read too good (loads walkman). Okay, you got two minutes fifty four seconds fromÖ now (presses play).

The bank robbers leave the car as the song begins to play. They are all wearing glasses, identical smart black suits with white shirts and black ties, long black trenchcoats, white trainers and carrying briefcases. They walk calmly into a building marked "Bank Royale", looking around them as they enter. Noel immediately starts dancing in the car and miming along to the words. He takes off his shades, fixes his hair and then puts back on his shades suddenly, hiding his face from a stranger passing by talking on the phone (played by one of Mint Royale). Once the stranger has gone, he starts clapping and sets off the windscreen wipers. Banging the steering wheel in time to the music, he accidentally hits the horn and immediately stops dancing to look around to see if anyone is coming. Two security guards are watching him and one starts to approach so he goes through handwritten cardboard signs kept on the seat behind him - they read "Broken down", "Loading", "Doctor on call" and "delivery - back in 5 mins". He eventually settles on throwing on a chauffeur's hat and holding up a white sign that reads "Collecting Mr Smith". The guard (played by the other Mint Royale) is satisfied and walks away, whereupon Noel begins throwing shapes in a violent celebratory manner. A pigeon poos on the bonnet of the car, and he wonders for a moment whether or not to leave the car to clean it. He decides to jump out, throws a rag across the stain and then throws the rag away. He then returns to dancing, this time flashing the headlights along with beeping the horn in time and throwing his arms out of the car window. The bank alarm goes off just as the song ends, and the other three return to the car. Noel says peevishly to the other three, "I think you'll find that was more like three minutes." They all exchange looks as the car speeds away. Director
Edgar Wright Jnr

GARTH MARENGHI'S DARK PLACE - CHANNEL 4 (2004)

Garth Marenghi's Dark Place was originally filmed in the 1980s in the early days of Channel 4, and has since been recognised as the most terrifying and radical television programmes ever made. However, the programme was never aired on British televisionÖ until now. Written, directed and performed by horror writer Garth Marenghi, it is a show about maverick doctor Rick Dagless (played by Garth Marenghi), who battles against the evil forces the lurk around Dark Place Hospital, which is in Romford. Garth's publisher, business associate, manager and co-star is Dean Learner, who plays Thornton Reed, the hospital manager. Long term fans of The Boosh will remember the beginning of the journey for Garth Marenghi, as Matt Holness (Marenghi) and Richard Ayoade (Dean Learner) began to perform the characters in the early Hen and Chickens days. These early live performances also included Matt Berry (who plays Todd Rivers / Dr Sanchez in the tv show) and Alice Lowe (Madeleine Wool / Dr. Liz Asher) as part of the Marenghi team. In Dark Place, Julian Barratt appeared in the first, fourth and final episodes as the hospital padre, once with some decidedly dodgy dental ware. Noel also appeared in the fourth episode "Apes of Wrath", playing a mad scientist turned ape, and took part in a great chopper-based bicycle race. Director
Richard Ayoade
Writers
Matthew Holness, Richard Ayoade

HOW TO TELL WHEN A RELATIONSHIP IS OVER (2003)

A short, short film - 90 seconds long - in which a couple show all the signs that their relationship is dead. These include thinking you are in a French film, the feeling that some things don't seem to make sense, and the fact that you find a dead pigeon. Julian plays "Him" opposite Susan Earle's "Her" and Grant Gillespe guests as "The Man Who May Or May Not Be Gay". Susan Earle, who is one half of fabulous double act Susan And Janice has also recently appeared in the ITV sitcom Hardware. How To TellÖ is a brilliant short film, ridiculously funny, with great performances from all three of the cast. It is written and directed by Tony Roche, who has worked on shows like TV To Go and The All-New Harry Hill Show, and was the genius behind World Of Pub. The whole thing can be watched, on a loop, *HERE*. Writer and Director
Tony Roche
Producer
Jim Spencer

Still to come...

LUCKY BREAK

ASYLUM

WHITE TEETH

PLUNKETT AND MACLEAN

HEAD FARM

METZ ADVERTS

NOELS ADVERTS (CARLING?)

PRINCIPLES OF LUST

MEXICANO

THE RECKONING

STORIES FROM THE MOON