How did you start in comedy?

Julian: Er I started doing comedy - no one else had thought of it and then Noel was doing some and I called him in and said this isn't funny
Noel: I did a lot of paper folding
Noel thought wheat was funny in those days and I said no, its maize (its maize, its maize) and I got him out of the doeldrums and brought him onto the stage.
Now we do some cock-punching in texas with Rich Fulcher, that’s where we met Rich Fulcher - he was king cock-puncher.
Do you want really true answers? Oh right. Well I just, you want normal or you want weird?
You want normal? It'll be a bit boring
You want to suck my soul out through your cassette player?
I started doing comedy at college and I thought it was going to be good, so I did it and died horrifically to begin with and, you know, I think it’s a pretty boring story of just going round the places, travelling round. I came to London to seek my fortune and came and lived in a bed-sit and it was horrible and stank and all my friends were really pleased that I came to London, they were like "hey great" and then… they never came to visit me. They came to visit once and then went "yeah, well…see you later" they never came back, thney came once to my dirty bed-sit in Shepherds Bush. And I was living there going "this is the artistic life" and I went off doing the gigs out and about and I'd go off to Streatham and die in front of strangers, come back and go "why am I doing this?" You know, it was a horrific time - really.
I'll tell tyou something really funny - he said that when he first started he didn't tell anyone in his house he'd just go out at night for five hours and come back in the middle of the night like a murderer, they thought he was a serial killer
But I was the one who was dying - that was the irony of the piece.
Oh! I like that! Anyway, that's enough about the brut what I did was…dress up as Jesus, that was a little thing I used to do, dress up as Jesus , I had long hair anyway and I used to paint a beard on cos I didn't grow a bear at that point. So I had this watercolour beard and it used to get genuinely hot and just melt. And I built a massive cross and I used to do sort of Mick Jagger impressions as Jesus and it was a bit weird and it kind of work so I thought "I can do that, its quite a good…thing" so I went to art college and there was no way I was going to be a painter. I'd say "I've just done a painting, its called 'the truth'" and they'd go "yeah, get lost" and I cried. So I did a gig in Cambridge and it went really well and that was it and while I was at college I thought - I didn't even do it for the rest of the year, I thought I can do that when I leave. I was really cocky about it. I went "oh, I'm a genius I'm brilliant" and during my next gig I died on my arse. (Julian hmms in agreement). I actually died. You think "wow - I've cracked it if my first gig went that well" and then you do your second gig and its needles in your eyes.

How did you first meet?

I saw julian when I was in college, he came to Wycombe ( High Wycombe - yeah) He was on and I just thought, you know, "well if he can do it, I can do it". He was the first person I ever saw doing really weird stuff but not weird in the sense of mentioning bananas once in a set but actually talking about things that were just not really to do with anything, I thought " yeah, that was brilliant". And all my friends saw him seperately and said "you've got to see this bloke he's just like you"
I was wearing a suit, and I had glasses on or something
No that was a different show - the next time I saw Julian he had a green suit on and tiny glasses, he looked like a jazz teacher and I was like "what are you all about" and he had this smallest bit of paper, with all his notes on it and I couldn't even read them, it was like you’d need a magnifying glass to read them. And he was on with Al Murray. Al Murray didn't do very well, it was before his character became the biggest thing in the world. I used to just turn up at his gigs a little bit and he didn't really know who I was, he thought I was a bit weird "oh, I like you, I want to be a bit like you"
And I'd go "yeah, get out of my life"
And then when we eventually met in Edinburgh 3 years ago, it was like Julian was going "I hope he's good" cos we got on socially
Yeah I thought "I hope he's good" cos there's this awful thing that as comics sometimes you meet people and get on with them and then they're awful and you see them and you go "oh my god" and its quite weird cos part of you's thinking well you know "whatever you do on stage doesn't really matter" but then sometimes people are awful comedians but they're really nice people and you feel really like "oh my god" and you've got to say "sorry, I don't want to see you again"!
He was like older and doing it and I looked up to him thinking "I hope he likes my stuff"
Yeah its really weird the whole comedy thing

How did Rich (Fulcher) become involved?

Through 'Unnatural Acts' which we did on Paramount which was fun but a bit wierd. We met him on that show (to Noel) wasn't it? It was on that show? Yeah and he was so funny, him and Sean Cullen
They were like an american version of us
We kept talking about doing a show together. Me, Noel, Sean and Rich. We wanted to do a four-way sketch show or something but Sean ended up going off to Canada and doing really well there.
We want to get Rich in again but like the first time I ever spoke to Rich properly he was so funny he just wouldn't talk seriously about and he was just pissing around. He was breaking tiny white bits off his cup and going "this tiny fella's my wife" and that was like the second time I ever spoke to him. (Julian ums in agreement!)
In that mansion
Yeah he had a big mansion, huge mansion in…Greenwich??
We were in a show - we were in a trailer having make-up done every day - we felt like stars, then er it all went wrong
It all went sadly doiwnhill and we just walked out!
(into the dictaphone) Have you ever seen me? I am THE Julian Barratt
Julian Barratt is a genius, when he moves, people cry.

Has anything changed since winning the Perrier Award??

Well, I don't let people touch me anymore, I don't need it, its dirty
People look at me and I set frire to them
So not really. I suppose people know who we are a little bit more. People say "hey, what's it like"? you must feel great and it doesn't really feel that good really. It feels great at the time, it was a brilliant high to win it, to recognised as doing something that was great but nothing really has happened. A little bit of interest but not really anything…we haven't broken through that thing yet - its something we need to just break through but we haven't yet.
All the industry now know who we are and like what we do so that’s a bonus.
We've got things bubbling

Didn't you win a radio commission when you won the Open Mike Award?

Yeah, I haven't done it yet, I've just kept it, I haven't written anything yet.
You've done a radip thing with The Pod anyway haven't you?
Yeah
We've been offered some radio
Yeah, we might do some radio soon , try and get some ideas across but yeah awards.
I think the important thing is that now me and Noel are working on things constantly rather than..you win an award and go "yeah" and then just don't do anything but we're keeping working on this stuff which is the most important thing so that next year we've got even better stuff than last year. We didn't even know that we could work together, we were very surprised, we though we might cancel each other out.
We thought we were both too weird and that it would be awful and it was for the first couple of gigs, it was a bit like…he does a bit, I do a bit, he does a bit but now we're working out how to work so its funny with both of us talking about the same thing that’s funny the thing you're talking about the thing……
That's rubbish

What do you think about the same people coming here every week?

Like you! No, not necessarily us!
We like it
There are lots of people who come all the time
Yeah but they don't usually come every week
They just tend to keep an eye on things and make sure we don't go up our own arses!
Its quite nice that people want to know what's going on
You must have brought so many different people

How would you describe the Mighty Boosh? What exactly is it?

It’s a sizzling bitch that rapes itself!
You know when a man says "look at that puma" and he's got rainbows coming out of his ankles. Its more showing funny ideas rather than just saying them. Stand-up's just people saying things and I quite like the idea that you can have a ja