Noel Fielding (; born 21 May 1973) is an English comedian, actor, writer, television personality, and artist. Known for his dark and surreal comedic style, he gained prominence in the late 1990s as a member of the comedy troupe The Mighty Boosh.
Fielding began performing stand-up comedy when he graduated from art school in 1995, and in 1997 he first met Mighty Boosh collaborator Julian Barratt when they both appeared on the same comedy bill at a pub in North London. In 1998, they performed their first comedy show together, and then later they took the show, The Mighty Boosh, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They returned to the festival in 1999 with Arctic Boosh, and in 2000 with Autoboosh. In 2001, The Mighty Boosh became a six-part radio show on BBC London Live called The Boosh, later transferring to BBC Radio 4. In 2004, the Mighty Boosh became a television show, The Mighty Boosh, which ran for three series on BBC Three until 2007. The television show generated a cult following and earned them a variety of awards.
Fielding played the role of Richmond in the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (2006–2013) and wrote and starred in his own Channel 4 comedy show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy (2012–2014). He appeared as a team captain on the BBC Two panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks (2009–2015; 2021–2025). Since 2017, Fielding co-presents the Channel 4 baking competition show The Great British Bake Off. In 2024, he played Dick Turpin in the Apple TV+ comedy series The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin. Aside from his comedy and television career, Fielding has worked as a visual artist, exhibiting his artwork internationally. He has also occasionally worked as a musician, most notably as member of the band Loose Tapestries.
Fielding was born in the Westminster area of London in 1973, the son of Royal Mail manager Ray Fielding and Yvonne Fagan and he grew up in Mitcham, Southwest London.
He is of French descent through his father who Fielding has described as being "basically French" and when Fielding was three years old, his father remarried and Fielding was mostly raised by his paternal grandmother.
His father and stepmother, Diane, would later become more involved in parenting during Fielding's mother's illness in the 1980s. His mother had two more children before dying in 1990, aged 37 years old, from complications caused by liver damage. Fielding has commented that, "My parents had lots of parties... They were hopelessly bohemian."
Michael Fielding, his younger paternal half-brother, later played various characters in The Mighty Boosh TV show and live stage shows as well as Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. His father, Ray Fielding, and his stepmother appeared in The Mighty Boosh TV show, with his father having several cameos as Chris de Burgh.
When Fielding was around 6 or 7, he was at a Kiss concert, wearing a Kiss costume and he was taken to the backstage dressing room of Kiss so that Gene Simmons could be shown his costume. At the age of 13, Fielding began writing comedy sketches. At the age of 15, Fielding became a goth and had goth girlfriends and at this time he first tried using makeup and said he loved being dressed up by his girlfriends.
Whilst studying at Croydon Art College, Fielding met Mighty Boosh collaborator Dave Brown. From 1992 to 1995, Fielding studied for a BA in graphic design and advertising at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education in High Wycombe, graduating in 1995.
Whilst at Buckinghamshire College, both Dave Brown and Nigel Coan were studying the same course as Fielding and in their second and third year of university all three lived in a student flat together. Nigel Coan also collaborated with Fielding on the Mighty Boosh. After they had lived together in student housing, Fielding, Brown, and Coan also later lived together in a flat in Hackney, London.
Fielding began performing comedy while at university and he began performing stand up when he graduated in 1995.
He first met Mighty Boosh collaborator Julian Barratt when he attended one of Barratt's solo stand-up gig's at the Hellfire comedy club and Fielding approached Barratt after his gig had finished. Later, on The Jonathan Ross Show, Barratt said that they had liked each other's comedy but didn't know if a collaboration would work, but, according to Fielding, they "had quite a good chemistry straight away". On the day they met, they both went back to Julian's place that night where Barratt played music on his Akai sampler while Fielding used a ping-pong ball to make an eye patch. They shared an interest in music, with Fielding more into rock and roll and pop, and Barratt preferring jazz, but both enjoyed electro and both had played in bands before meeting. They also shared common interests in comedy, including Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
After Fielding performed at the final of The Daily Telegraph open mic award at the Edinburgh comedy festival, he was signed to Avalon talent agency and through Avalon began performing on the same comedy bills as Barratt. During this period, Fielding and Barratt were performing stand-up at the same gigs together and they realised they liked each other's stuff and began writing and doing gigs together as a duo.
In 2002, Fielding performed his solo show Voodoo Hedgehog at the Edinburgh festival and it included the characters "The Moon" and the "The Jelly Fox" that later appeared in the Mighty Boosh TV series and it received a Perrier award nomination. In 2010, Fielding was going to perform a solo tour across the country and then it was cancelled with Fielding announcing via Twitter that he was too busy to do the tour as he wanted to concentrate on writing The Mighty Boosh film with Julian Barratt as well as creating a new album. In 2012, he toured Sydney and Melbourne performing a solo stand-up show as well as hosting a stand-up comedy gala as a part of the Just For Laughs festival held in Sydney.
From 2014 to 2015, Fielding toured the UK and Australia with a new comedy show An Evening With Noel Fielding that included both stand-up comedy and sketch comedy and along with Fielding included performances from his brother Michael Fielding and long-term collaborator Tom Meeten. Mighty Boosh collaborator Nigel Coan created the animation for the show.
In 2005 and 2010, Fielding performed a solo stand-up show at Montreal's Just For Laughs comedy festival and in 2020 the festival had to be moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic and during this period Fielding and Jimmy Carr live streamed a conversation from their respective homes.
Barratt and Fielding performed together for the first time in Stewart Lee's show, Moby Dick and King Dong (at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 1997), in which Barratt played King Dong's penis.
Sometime around 1998, they then put on their first comedy show at Oranje Boom Boom, which "was very raw, but... hilarious", and afterwards got a gig at Hen and Chickens Theatre, a theatre bar in Islington, London. They then took The Mighty Boosh up to Edinburgh in 1998, followed by Arctic Boosh (1999) and Autoboosh (2000). Fielding said about their first live show in 1998 that they had worked on their ideas together, and played "zookeepers [who] got sucked through our bosses' eyes and into a magic forest". Both Michael Fielding and Richard Ayoade appeared in a performance of the Mighty Boosh at the Hen and Chickens in 2002 during a live run through of a Mighty Boosh pilot. Fielding and Barratt said that they used to put potted plants all around the Hen and Chickens "to try and make it into a sort of play", but they "didn't know anything about theatre or what you did". The name "Mighty Boosh" was originally a phrase used by a friend of Michael Fielding's to describe the hair that Michael had as a child.