The Mighty Boosh Live: Future Sailors Tour was a stage-show written and performed by Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, also known as The Mighty Boosh. Michael Fielding, Rich Fulcher and Dave Brown also performed in the show, along with the Boosh Band.
The show toured the UK and Ireland from September 2008 through to January 2009.
Act I The show begins with Vince Noir (Fielding) and Howard Moon (Barratt) performing "Future Sailors" – Noir entering the stage in a large pirate ship, Moon following in a rubber dinghy. The first act of the show features a series of sketches starring a number of different characters. Bob Fossil (Fulcher) is introduced, and guides the audience through a series of moves from his Dance Academy. Naboo (M. Fielding) and Bollo (Brown) follow this, Naboo now a gangsta rapper in Los Angeles, and Bollo shows off his latest invention – the frisbee clock.
After this, The Moon makes his first appearance; Tony Harrison introduces his own chat-show themed 'nugget' of the show, including a set from a Lithuanian taxi-driver turned stand-up comic Kraków (Fulcher), and The Crack Fox tells a cautionary tale about a party lifestyle and subsequent drug use. When he leaves, The Hitcher is introduced, leading the Boosh Band on a performance of Eels.
Act II The second act of the show revolves around a play written by Howard Moon about the end of the world, entitled No Future? Moon has enlisted the help of Naboo, Fossil, Bollo and Vince to perform the play, but Noir is quick to point out its ridiculous content, and hijacks the play by blackmailing Howard about a jazz-porn photo shoot he mistakenly got roped into.
At Vince's insistence, the cast (now with Brown out of the Bollo costume again) perform his play about aliens from the planet Camden. Vince plays Sunflash (who speaks with a Chinese/Chav accent, which Vince believes people will speak in the future) and Fossil as Booblay (a future pleasure-robot). Sunflash transforms the mutants from Moon's play into beautiful versions of themselves, thanks to his sponsor Jean-Claude Jacquetti. The increasingly humiliated Howard is made to wear a silver corset and blonde pigtails, and together with Dave Brown's Mutant character, performs the Mutants song from the first series.
Moon tries to halt the play and leave the theatre, but is lured back in with a crimp. The Boosh Band reappears and together with Vince, Howard, Naboo, Bollo and Bob Fossil, they perform a medley of crimps from the series. During this, the Honey Monster appears, and the gang use Vince's giant Jean-Claude Jacquetti hairdryer to decapitate him and stick his head on a spike: a reference to a Sugar Puffs advertisement which they believed had plagiarised their 'crimping' style earlier that year. The band perform the song "Nanageddon" to end the show, sometimes followed by performances of "I Did A Shit on Your Mum" and "Charlie".
Early versions and changes The previews and early performances were introduced by stage manager Bob Fossil, who would run through a series of safety features with the audience, before the "Future Sailors" number, but this was soon dropped. Over time, many sections become elongated – during the November shows, Bollo's frisbee clock joke was built upon greatly, for example.
Some parts of the show were dropped altogether – previews included prototype versions of The Crack Fox sketches, but were replaced on the early tour dates by a sequence involving Rudi, who would then join The Hitcher during the performance of Eels. Also, early performances featured the Bingo Caller from Nanageddon instead of Eleanor.
For the DVD recording nights at Manchester Apollo on 3 and 4 December, The Moon's reworking of the Jay-Z track, 99 Problems, was removed due to copyright clearance, but it has been performed on almost every other night of the tour (apart from one of the early Glasgow shows where the Moon did not appear due to technical issues), including the other shows that week. Eleanor also switched from throwing her usual ballpit-style balls into the audience during the bingo section, instead throwing and kicking giant, numbered, inflatable balls into the crowds – on the DVD filming nights, these were also signed by the cast.
Some sections change simply because of either audience participation, or due to mistakes on the night. Bollo tripping over the globe, for example, was added after Dave Brown slipped several times in early October, and by the end of the month it was a regular part of the performance. Similarly, Tony Harrison slipping in his chair, and the following dialogue, was added after Noel Fielding found it increasingly difficult to stay upright in such an enclosed space.
There have been rare performances of Love Games from The Legend of Old Gregg during the final band set.
DVD Boosh Live: Future Sailors Tour was released on DVD on 16 November 2009 with special and limited edition copies of the DVD being made available at the same time. Recorded at the Manchester Apollo on 3 and 4 December, the DVD features the full show with commentary. The Special and Limited Editions also contain a bonus disc with backstage clips and scenes from Journey of the Childmen, a documentary about the Future Sailors Tour. Journey of the Childmen was shown at film festivals and received a full DVD release in 2010.
The 'Normal Edition' includes the 2008–9 Live Show. The 'Special Edition' includes the 2008–9 Live Show, the 2006 Live Show, and a set of Boosh Outrage playing cards in the style of Top Trumps.
The 'Limited Edition' includes the 2008–9 Live Show, the 2006 Live Show, a set of Boosh playing cards, and a Boosh belt buckle.
Tour dates DateCityCountryVenueEurope20 August 2008LondonEnglandRiverside Studios21 August 20081 September 200811 September 2008EdinburghScotlandEdinburgh Festival Theatre12 September 200813 September 2008GlasgowPavilion Theatre14 September 200816 September 2008DublinIrelandOlympia Theatre17 September 200818 September 200819 September 200820 September 200822 September 2008YorkEnglandGrand Opera House23 September 200824 September 200825 September 200826 September 2008HarrogateHarrogate Theatre27 September 200829 September 2008HuddersfieldLawrence Batley Theatre30 September 20081 October 2008BuxtonBuxton Opera House2 October 20083 October 2008WakefieldTheatre Royal4 October 20086 October 2008SheffieldSheffield City Hall7 October 20088 October 20089 October 200810 October 200811 October 200814 October 2008LiverpoolEcho Arena Liverpool15 October 200816 October 2008BlackpoolOpera House Theatre17 October 200818 October 2008CardiffWalesCardiff International Arena20 October 2008LondonEnglandO2 Academy, Brixton21 October 200822 October 200823 October 200824 October 200825 October 200827 October 2008BristolBristol Hippodrome28 October 200829 October 200830 October 200831 October 2008BirminghamNIA Academy1 November 20083 November 2008OxfordNew Theatre Oxford4 November 20085 November 2008WolverhamptonWolverhampton Civic Hall6 November 20087 November 2008NottinghamTrent FM Arena Nottingham8 November 200810 November 2008PortsmouthPortsmouth Guildhall11 November 200812 November 2008BrightonBrighton Centre13 November 200814 November 200815 November 200817 November 2008PlymouthPlymouth Pavilions18 November 200819 November 2008BournemouthWindsor Hall21 November 200822 November 200824 November 2008CardiffWalesCardiff International Arena25 November 200826 November 2008NewcastleEnglandTelewest Arena27 November 200828 November 2008GlasgowScotlandClyde Auditorium29 November 20081 December 2008ManchesterEnglandO2 Apollo Manchester2 December 20083 December 20084 December 20085 December 2008Manchester Evening News Arena6 December 20088 December 2008LeedsGrand Theatre9 December 200810 December 200811 December 200812 December 2008LondonWembley Arena13 December 2008BrightonBrighton Centre15 December 2008LondonWembley Arena17 December 2008The O2 Arena18 December 200822 December 2008BirminghamNational Indoor Arena23 December 2008ManchesterManchester Evening News Arena4 January 2009BelfastNorthern IrelandOdyssey Arena5 January 2009DublinIrelandThe O27 January 2009SheffieldEnglandSheffield Arena9 January 2009NottinghamTrent FM Arena Nottingham10 January 200914 January 2009GlasgowScotlandScottish Exhibition and Conference Centre15 January 200916 January 2009AberdeenPress & Journal Arena17 January 2009
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