When The Mighty Boosh first appeared on the fledgling digital channel BBC Three, Noel Fielding admits he and co-star Julian Barratt had no idea whether anyone was even watching.

It was the pair’s first post-series live tour which underlined the impact The Boosh was having.

“Everyone was dressed up as characters, ” he says ahead of An Evening With Noel Fielding in Liverpool.

“We realised people were watching this. We made another series, did another tour, and by the end we were sell- ing out arenas and doing 100 dates. It was crazy.

“We never compromised on what we were doing – it just got to a certain point where it went out of our control.”

But when Fielding’s first solo television series launched on E4 he wasn’t expecting the negative reaction it would cause – with one member of the Twitterati describing it as “another 9/11”.

“Luxury Comedy was experimental, ” he says. “It was a chance to work with a guy who I went to art school with [animator Nigel Coan]. We wanted to do a long-form animation experimental show. Because of the success of the Boosh I wasn’t in a position to do that.”

Its freeform style, gar- ish colour scheme and surreal characters, rang- ing from talking stingray Tony Reason to yellow New York City cop Sergeant Raymond Boombox, made it some- thing of a Marmite creation. “Half the people loved it, and the other half hated it, ” says Fielding.

“We had so much criticism for something where we were trying to be free and experimental. I totally understand it was hard to watch – like a [visual] Captain Beefheart album.

“The music was good, some of the charac- ters were good, and the intention was good, but it wasn’t holding together as a whole.”

Fielding’s solution for the second series was to set it all in a coffee shop – albeit one located on the side of an active volcano in Painted Hawaii – with story arcs running through each episode.

The comedy was accompanied by a healthy dose of post-modern irony about the merits of its fore-runner, with plots revolving around Fielding having to boost his ratings, battle writer’s block and stop his creation being turned into a reality show.

The gambit seemed to work, with the reviews both from critics and online being largely positive. He’s keen to point out that this live show isn’t a Luxury Comedy tour – although he is joined by co-stars Tom Meeten and Fielding’s brother Michael.

“I wanted to write a good live show which wasn’t a Boosh thing or a Luxury Comedy thing, ” he says.

The result is a mix of stand-up and charac- ter comedy in the first half, before Fielding is kidnapped and has to be rescued from the plasticine world by his character creation Fantasy Man.

In the lead-up to the live tour Fielding did a series of warm-up shows trying out the differ- ent live and animated elements.

“When you’re doing animation in a live show every time you want to change some- thing it’s a lot of work to reinvent it, ” he admits.

“It’s a weird process to get the rhythm and timing right.” He’s enjoying the experience of being back on stage again after a five-year break though – even if he isn’t in his double act with Barratt. “I do miss that, ” he says.

“It was quite hard doing gigs in the beginning without him. Michael is very deadpan, and Tom is very physical, so there is a nice balance between the three of us.”

As his live show tours nation- wide, Fielding can be seen in liv- ing rooms across the country as a team captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks – a show much more rooted in reality.

“I’m free to do stuff in real life with the panel show, with the likes of Nicole Sherzinger and Alice Cooper, ” he says.

“It keeps it varied for me – I don’t get bored as I can keep mixing it up. “I’m good at forging little relationships with people – I get very protective of my team as we spend all day together. If the host has a go at them it’s like someone having a go at your mates.”

He sees his job as making sure his team shine, rather than feel uncomfortable. “Paloma Faith has a really brilliant person- ality but most people wouldn’t get that if she was just a singer or a pop star, ” he says. Fielding grew up in a music-obsessed fami- ly, but admits a lack of skills himself – some- thing which made The Mighty Boosh’s latter- day move into the music world a little tough.

“I don’t play an instrument to a brilliant level while Julian plays lots of instruments, ” he says. “It was fun for me to pretend to be Mick Jagger, and sing and write lyrics. “When it was just about the music I didn’t feel as comfortable with it.”

Fielding did get to hang out with Serge Pizzorno from Kasabian who went on to pro- vide the music for Luxury Comedy and this live tour.

“He gets to do some mad stuff that he could- n’t get to do with the band, ” says Fielding. “He is very funny and really gets stuff.”

As for the future Fielding says he would still love to make a Boosh film, and is in talks about a new television series.

“I’ve got a new book, I’m doing live stuff until the summer, I’m doing a painting show next year, there’s a lot of things, ” he says.

“I’ve worked hard for ten years – I would like to have a few months just having a rest. “I would get bored though and get into all sorts of trouble. I’m quite old now – I should start thinking about children.” And with that thought his freeform mind is off again.

“Harpo Marx had five children, or something like that. He was quite old – 45 or something. Imagine him as a dad – playing his harp and running about, embarrassing his kids every time. You’ve got to embarrass your own children – I can’t wait for that...”

Brighton Centre, King’s Road, Saturday, November 29- Doors 7pm, tickets £25. Call 08448 471515.