Julian Barratt Pettifer (born 4 May 1968) is an English comedian, actor, and musician. As a comedian and comic actor, he is known for his use of surreal humour and black comedy. During the 2000s he was part of the Mighty Boosh comedy troupe alongside his comedy partner Noel Fielding.
Born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Barratt attended the University of Reading and first performed stand up comedy while at university. In 1997 he first met Mighty Boosh collaborator Noel Fielding when he attended one of Barratt's solo stand-up gig's at the Hellfire comedy club. After this Barratt and Fielding began performing regular solo stand-up gigs together and they soon realised that they liked each other's stuff and began writing and doing the gigs together. Sometime around 1998 they then performed their first comedy show together in London which was a mix of both stand up and sketch comedy and then in 1998 they took the show, The Mighty Boosh, to the Edinburgh fringe festival and returned again 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. This was followed by the television show The Mighty Boosh, which ran for three series on BBC Three from 2004 to 2007. The show generated a cult following and won a variety of awards. From February to April 2006 they went on tour around the UK with the stage show The Mighty Boosh Live and then toured the UK for a second time from September 2008 to January 2009 with The Mighty Boosh Live: Future Sailors Tour.
Alongside Fielding, he has starred in Unnatural Acts, Nathan Barley and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Barratt also co-wrote and starred in the 2017 film Mindhorn. He starred in the Channel 4 black comedy-drama sitcom Flowers.
Early life and education Barratt was born Julian Barratt Pettifer in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where he grew up. His father was a science teacher and a fan of jazz music. Barratt's father made an appearance in the first series of The Mighty Boosh, and both his parents appeared in the second series.
As a teen, Barratt played in a band, and has described how when he was 17 he wanted to begin playing in a jazz band in London, but was not successful.
He began studying a course in American studies at Reading University, but left before graduating. Barratt adopted his middle name as his surname to distinguish himself from reporter Julian Pettifer.
Career
Stand Up On his beginnings in stand up Barratt has commented that "I was never like Noel [Fielding] or Lee Mack, who are just funny all the time. No one ever said to me, you should be a comedian mate. But I watched a lot of stand-up at uni – people like Mark Lamarr, Sean Hughes, Eddie Izzard, just standing on a stage doing these phenomenal routines. And I could see how you could do it. So I started doing it myself, and I was so shocked when it worked. I remember one time I completely forgot what I was about to say, and I just ran out of the venue." It has also been commented that this occurred "...during his first standup sketch at Reading University..." and that he "...ran through the back door mid-act and through fields to a lake." Barratt has further commented that after he left the venue "...the manager came out after me and said: 'Get back in there, it's going well.' So I went back. I suppose that was a big turning point for me."
Barratt has further commented on his beginnings in theatre that "I'm looking at a big poster of myself now and I know my 16-year-old self would see that and think, what is going on there? He would be amazed that people actually like what I do. When Noel and I started gigging together and found people were really enjoying it, it was such a thrill. It was a validation of what felt like a long process of growing up, coming up against all these difficulties if you're shy and you have all these dreams and thoughts you can't communicate. It was very exciting to finally find a way to express myself, and seeing people enjoying that. I suppose I'm interested in communicating a pretentious, pompous person a lot of the time, and I have to recognise there is that in me. I did a few serious things before I got into comedy, which make me shudder now. I remember having my mate film me, all shadowy, doing performance poetry. My goodness."
He first met Noel Fielding 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. After Fielding entered The Daily Telegraph open mic award and attended the final at the Edinburgh comedy festival he was signed to Avalon talent agency and through Avalon began performing on the same comedy bills as Barratt. Whilst performing on the comedy network together on the same bill they realised they liked each other's stuff and began writing and doing gigs together.
In 2006 Fielding commented that "We were doing stand-up and were on the same bill together. I was on first and usually you can only have about one weird comedian on a line-up. He'd been doing it a bit longer than me... [Barratt was like]'...Let's write together'. I've been stuck with him ever since and that was about eight years ago or something." Whilst Barratt and Fielding were on The Jonathan Ross Show, Ross asked them "And did you perform as solo acts ever, did you do like stand up..." with Barratt responding "yeah, yeah, that's how we sort of met really on the circuit, doing stand up, yeah.", with Ross responding "But, but was it similar to the Boosh stuff, 'cos the Boosh stuff it seems to be so much of a partnership I can't imagine it being taken apart and being served up separately.", with Barratt responding that "We were both doing quite surreal stuff, eh...", with Fielding adding "It was quite weird wasn't it, alot weirder than the show in a way...", with Barratt continuing "...but we sort of, when we first met we kind of liked each others comedy but we didn't know that it would work, we didn't know whether it was gonna cancel each other out and make....", with Fielding responding "Yeah, too weird to make sort of, straight...", with Barratt continuing "...might just become geography or something else or... this sort of thing, but it worked for some reason...", with Fielding adding "We 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 whilst Fielding used a ping-pong ball to make an eye patch. Fielding has commented on their shared interest in music that "I was sort of a bit more rock n roll and pop and he [Barratt] was a bit more jazz but then we sort of met in the middle with electro... but Julian was... I think he left university to join a band, we were both in bands before we were in the Boosh, so we sort of came from that background. Lot of our friends were in bands." They also found they both shared common interests in comedy including the work of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
Film and television
The Mighty Boosh
Barratt and Fielding have commented on the beginning of The Mighty Boosh, with Barratt commenting that "We performed together for the first time in ... was it in that show by Stewart Lee?", with Fielding replying "yeah, Stewart Lee's show, Moby Dick and King Dong (At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 1997) ... Julian played King Dong's penis...", with Barratt replying "...an enormous penis...", and then with Fielding replying "perfect King Dong... then we thought let's do a show together."
Sometime around 1998 they then put on their first comedy show and it was commented by Nigel Coan with whom they collaborated with on Mighty Boosh that "They did their first gig at Oranje Boom Boom which is sort of in Chinatown in London, and ah, which was ridiculous, I mean it was really, like, ridiculous costumes and um, they didn't know what... they really [didn't] know what they were doing... ...It was very raw, but it was, it was hilarious... ...They thought lets do a show, an Edinburgh show. I think they started to think about doing that. So they got a gig at Hen and Chickens...". Dave Brown who also collaborated on the Mighty Boosh with them commented further on their time at the Hen and chickens which is a theatre bar in Islington, London, "They would use the Hen and Chickens as this kind of... place to, a platform to just try stuff out and it was just a great little place they could do a regular spot... ...where they would probably write and have ideas in the week, try stuff out for half of that and then for the rest of it, it would just be improv and mucking about. Then they took the, um, took The Mighty Boosh up to Edinburgh and then two more shows Arctic Boosh (1999), Autoboosh (2000)...". 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 commented on their time at the Hen and Chickens, with Fielding commenting that "...cos it'd be stand up and people would come on and do straight stand up. And then we used to put potted plants all around the gig and music on... ...to try and make it into a sort of play... people couldn't believe the audacity. It got some sort of reputation as being sort of enigmatic but we're just really unprofessional. We didn't know anything about theatre or what you did." with Barratt responding to Fielding "Speak for yourself, I was in a Sartre play at university I'll have you know. Huis Clos." Fielding has commented further on their first live show, The Mighty Boosh, “Julian had a song about a mammoth that he wanted to sing to a girl in the audience, and I had a few ideas for some weird sketches... ...We started working on our ideas together... ...We were zookeepers and we got sucked through our bosses' eyes and into a magic forest..."
In 2001 The Mighty Boosh became a six-part radio show on BBC London Live, later transferring to BBC Radio 4 and Barratt has humorously commented that "...so we did a radio show, we did, we sort of recorded it in a sort of old railway sort of arch...", with Fielding adding "in Shoreditch"... with Julian continuing "...built our studio out of weird... little children's toys...". Barratt and fielding have also commented on the process of moving the show from the stage to TV, with Barratt commenting "...we wanted to get on TV but it'd been a lot of trouble because they thought it was eh, the scripts we sort of gave them were sort of like massive epic adventures that sounded like it would cost them a million pounds to make so they said this isn't, I don't know how this is going to work on stage, well actually what happened is..." with Fielding adding "We wrote it for Channel 4 originally", and with Julian continuing "...[we spoke to them] before we'd done a stage show and they said how is this going to work on TV cos it is ridiculous. So we wrote, we did a stage show and then they said hows that going to work on TV because its really good live, so, perhaps we should've done it inside a television set."