Fans of British comedy (andThe Great British Bake-Off) should be extremely familiar withNoel Fieldingby now. The soft-spoken, witty, musical ‘glitter goth’ is beloved for his work with Julian Barratt onThe Mighty Boosh, his time on the panel showNever Mind the Buzzcocks, his surrealist seriesNoel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, and, of course, hosting the last several seasons of the world’s favorite baking competition show. Fielding has a great new comedy series,The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin, streaming on Apple TV+, which was the perfect occasion for us to talk all things comedy with him.
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpinfeatures a who’s who ofcomedy geniuses from the UK, including Hugh Bonneville, Tamsin Grieg, Mark Heap, Simon Farnaby, Asim Chaudhry, Joe Wilkinson, Jessica Hynes, Greg Davies, Diane Morgan, Rich Fulcher, and more. Fielding mused about some of the great comedians who could’ve popped up in the show and been right at home, and being in New York at the time, his mind turned to the recently deceasedRichard Lewis, who also spent time in a comedic period comedy, in Mel Brooks’Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
“He had even better hair than me,” laughed Noel Fielding, adding:
Let’s have a moment for the genius of Richard Lewis. I absolutely loved Richard Lewis. Because we got to know him through obviouslyCurb Your Enthusiasm, and then realized he was the Sheriff of Nottingham in inRobin Hood: Men in Tights. But other than that, I knew his stand-up a little bit, his sort of neurotic, brilliant stand-up.
"He would have been a great guest actor inDick Turpin," said Kenton Allen, the prolific British producer who worked onThe Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpinwith Fielding and its creators, Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis, and Stuart Lane. Allen is responsible for some of the great UK productions of the past 25 years, includingThe Royle Family, Rev, The Outlaws, That Mitchell & Web Look, and the Oscar-winningSix Shooter.
“He could’ve played my dad,” added Fielding about Richard Lewis. :He’s amazing. He’s so New York, right? He’s so quintessentially New York."
“He went to school with Larry David, right? They were born in the same hospital days apart,” said Allen. The two thought for a moment about the many possibilities they could only imagine.
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin Review: Pure Fun
Noel Fielding and Hugh Bonneville lead an absurdist comedy series about charming highway bandits set in the 18th century.
Dick Turpin’s Noel Fielding on Mitch Hedberg and the Artists We’ve Lost
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin
Bringing up Lewis sent Fielding’s train of thought arriving at a different legendary comedian we’ve all lost, the irreverent and hipMitch Hedgberg. “You know one of the people that I absolutely loved to death, who died, is Mitch Hedberg,” began Fielding. “Oh man, I met him in Montreal really early on, me and Julian [Barratt] met him, and he sort of made friends with us. And we had no idea who he was, he was just this weird guy. And we were like, ‘Hey, we’re the weird guys!’ And we sort of thought, ‘This guy’s cool.'” He added:
“Then we went to watch him, and it was just as he was sort of breaking out. And it was so amazing. And it was like a feeding frenzy, everyone was trying to sort of sign him to do films and this or that. It was just the moment where he sort of broke out, and I stayed in touch with him. He was such an amazing, such a lovely guy. I always thought he’d be great in the right part, he’d be so good in it.”
Fielding concluded with a touching thought about not just the recently lost comedian Richard Lewis, but all the great artists that we’ve lost:
What I love aboutstand-ups and comedians, though, is when they die, they’re still with us. It’s like musicians in a way. You can still put on, like, a great hour of Mitch Hedberg or Bill Hicks, like when you put on a great Bowie album, it’s like they’re still there. You forget that they’re actually dead, don’t you, because he’s still alive in my front room.
The first four episodes ofThe Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpinare streaming on Apple TV+ through the link below, with new episodes premiering on Fridays. You can watch the trailer below.
