The Boosh Festival, held at Hop Farm in Kent, was impressive in almost every way. Impressive that a television show can manage to justify a festival in the first place, but when that many people can be expected to gather for the debut gig for the music of the show it is twice as amazing. There were organisational problems - specifically the tiny capacity of the comedy tent that barely held a tenth of the festivals attendance meant there were always queues to get in and leaving the tent at any point was a great way to ensure you wouldn’t be able to get back in for any of the big acts due to the queue.

But once you were actually in the tent, there were some great performances. Too many to mention all by name, with Ross Noble’s comedy wanderings the predictable, almost inevitable, highlight. Mark Watson perhaps got the biggest laugh by announcing in a Welsh accent “I just kicked you!” and David O’Doherty and Robert Ines both had decent sets. The couple of Boosh-related acts went down as well as you would expect, Matt Berry (Dixon Bainbridge in the Mighty Boosh) might only have been on for 10 minutes but got a fantastic reception. And Matthew Holness (Garth Marenghi himself, as well as a seperate set as folk-musician Merriam Weir) were both improbably professional and proved that listing punctuation can be very, very funny.

On the music stage things had an equally Booshy flavour, Polar Bear filled the stage with glorious jazz, Robots in Disguise filling the stage with glorious electro, Gary Numan filled the stage with Gary Numan, The Kills filled the stage with NME, The Charlatans filled the stage with 1997 and Har Mar Superstar filled the stage with his near-nude form scampering around.

But there was only one musical act people had shed their fifty pound notes for, The Mighty Boosh Band. Introduced on the stage by the moon itself, Howard Moon appeared in a small dinghy whilst Noel Fielding took to the stage in a massive Viking Longboat and dressed as a pirate. Perhaps best summed up by one audience member saying “ohmygodthereisaboatohmygodilovehim” followed by a long squeal without the hassle of breathing at any point at all. It’s fair to say that Noel Fielding’s ability to moisten young girls hasn’t left him yet.

But despite the squeals, things went well from start to finish with the obsessed crowd delighted by a ridiculous amount of costume changes and appearances from a very large percentage of the characters from the show. Bollo, Naboo, Bob Fossil, Old Gregg, The Hitcher, Lester Corncrake and Rudi van DiSarzio all had a decent amount of stage time. As a music gig it was distracting, as a Mighty Boosh gig it was exactly what the audience wanted.

The show was a series of individual moments, Howard Moon going to work on solo guitar work. “I did a shit on your mom” being performed in its original punk fashion followed by a jazz version of the same song. Bollo the gorilla covering “Fuck the pain away” before Peaches returned to the stage to correct the lyrics and both being told to shut up. Naboo arriving on an ostrich. Noel Fielding falling off an inflatable eel. The funk providing funk juice to the audience from its teats. The squealing. The multi-coloured jets of flame. The kicking of bingo balls into the audience. The wobbling-fat dance off between Rich Fulcher and Har Mar Superstar that genuinely defied belief.

While the memorable moments kept coming, musically everything was nice and tight. Songs that were brief in the show extended with ease, sometimes too far to provide a chance for other members to change costumes. The backing band all gave everything a nice professional, funky gloss. Julian Barratt proved that he is an accomplished musician, Noel Fielding an excellent front-man. As fireworks blasted off and the moon said goodbye, it was genuinely impossible to find anyone disappointed with the show.

Things went downhill afterwards with bus-chaos (the show finished with just enough time for people to get close to catching the last train to London, but not to actually catch it) which like the tiny comedy tent gave a bit of a sour taste to an excellent day of entertainment.

But any Boosh fans who didn’t attend should be kicking themselves. It was excellent.

Illustration by Tasha Caine, Photographs by Tim Cheesman.