The Goons were always one of our favourites; we always felt we were in that tradition - Goons, Monty Python, Peter Cook, Vic and Bob, Spike Milligan. We felt we were part of that lineage, but in England, it wasn't happening like that. There was a brand of comedy like 'The Office,' which was very real.
For the second series of 'Luxury Comedy', I tried to drop the 'Noel Fielding' from it. I thought that would make it less like a solo project and more like a show. Also, it would probably have been easier to take the reaction to the first series if it had been a project rather than my name and face!
You go to all these parties and meet all these crazy people. But ultimately, it just ends up with you in a club, and then you're in the VIP area of the club, and then you're in the special secret VIP bit, and then eventually, it's just you, on your own, in a VIP box, going, 'Is this fun? I'm not sure this is fun.'
I just like to build. Don't get me wrong: I think stand-up is great, and when someone like Richard Pryor or Steve Martin does stand-up, there's nothing better in the world. But I don't want to watch a lot of stand-ups for two hours. So I can do 45 minutes of stand-up and then say, 'Can we do something else now?'
I started writing sketches when I was 13. I liked Vic Reeves, Fry and Laurie, and Paul Merton, and I thought you could just send sketches to the BBC, and they'd go, 'Great. We'll put these on telly.' But I gradually realised that you either had to go to university and join a club, or do standup.
When we went to America, Robin Williams came to the gig, and Mike Myers had lunch with us and wanted to write a film for us. We're idiots - we turned it down. I think we were just sick of each other at that point. When you get famous, it takes some time to realise it isn't going to be good.