We caught up with Rich to talk about his career so far.
So, Rich Fulcher, hows it going?
Fine, yeah good.
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Youve just flown in from LA.
What had you done over there?
I was doing someEleanorshows out there to get ready for London.
Everything Ive done is to prepare for these next few days.
LA audiences are very strange.
I dont know exactly what theyre gonna laugh at.
And I did it in an old silent movie theatre, which is a great venue.
Theyre afraid theyll embarrass themselves.
And so you put up a show and hope they come out of the woodwork.
Lets go right back to the start now.
What made you decide to make people laugh for a living?
Oh this is tough.
I mean, I always liked trying to make people laugh.
I couldnt really fight very well so I tried to make people laugh.
So, that was always with me, but I wanted to be a lawyer.
So after I graduated I thought, Nows the time to try something new.
I could always go back to law, so I thought I would try this comedy thing..
I had done this talent show at law school, it was called Law Revue.
It wasnt like the ultimate moment but it was a nice segue.
They have Bill Murray, John Candy, John Belushi.
Norm fromCheersis quoted as saying Second City is like the Harvard of comedy.
When you were starting out, who were your earliest influences?
I loved to listen to and watch Steve Martin.
I would quote everything with my friends.
Everybody else would be, yknow, listening to Pink Floyd and wed be doingMonty Python.
Then there was Bill Murray.
I loved Bill Murray and hisSaturday Night Livestuff.
What was the circuit in Chicago like at the time?
Well it was weird, because in Chicago it was mostly improv comedy.
Which is really exciting because youd get on stage and perform almost every night.
Thered be these schools of improv just like schools of actor.
Like short form, long form, different types of medium form.
People would watch them like, Oh, did you hear what such-and-such is doing?
They never really melded.
But in Chicago, it mattered.
There was a cliquey atmosphere then?
Yeah, I actually saw fights break out.
Did they all have matching jackets to show their allegiance?
(laughing) Almost!
Like there would be theatres too.
They would have parties and stuff and be like, Oh shit, that other theatres here!
Watch out for those guys.
Steve Carell was out there.
All these people that are embedded in comedy now.
It really was an exciting era back in the 90s.
it’s possible for you to trace a lot of that back to Chicago.
And Second City was right off of that, its one of the hearts of modern day comedy.
And this was all in the early 90s?
Youd get a weird premise from the audience like Can Czechoslovakia be mailed?
and youd have to prove it as professors of whatever they gave us.
It was an hour long lecture and it really did well.
Somebody suggested, Why dont you do the Edinburgh festival?
and wed go, OK!
We were so excited, we got stickers, we did all the stuff you do.
I think theres something really translatable about doing a university lecture.
So, as a result we got a manager out here who took us all over.
To festivals like, yknow Australia and we did two more Edinburghs.
Our group disbanded soon after for different reasons.
One of them went on to form a company, whos like the CEO of Twitter now.
One of them became a doctor.
So, they had all their reasons, but I was still trying to do this.
I said to my manager, Do you want to take me on solo?
and she said, Okay, sure, so I was the experiment.
So that was how you all met?
I met Julian a little bit before when he was doing a TV series calledAsylum.
I thought, Wow, hes very… enigmatic.
Paramount burned those shows.
Sacha Baron-Cohen started his Bruno character.
They were commissioning all these great things, but they got scared and closed up.
Going back to theBoosh, were you in from the start or was it something you got drawn into?
Well theBooshbecame theBooshinitially when Noel and Julian started to do a lot of double act stuff.
And they had these ideas about being zookeepers because they were infatuated with all of this animal humour stuff.
There were a couple of sketches inUnnatural Actswhere they are zookeepers.
Unnatural Actswas the seed for the gestation of theBoosh?
That was the seed.
While we were doing the show we were all of like mind.
And we decided, Why dont we do a show after this, an Edinburgh show?
Of course, the Boosh was a big hit and went on to become a radio then TV series.
Did you have to change much during those transitions?
The TV show needed to embrace a lot of those qualities.
Thats what makes it what it is.
Your other TV showSnuff Boxwith Matt Berry, how did that come about?
I met Matt during theBoosh.
He was Dixon Bainbridge and hed beat me.
We were pitching other kinds of stuff.
You dont always think of sketch shows as a collaborative thing.
Wed been around for a bit and thats usually something you do at the start.
But in Britain, its different.
We were offered this show because they liked our ideas and were looking for a new sketch act.
Little Britainhad just jumped from BBC Three to BBC One and they were commissioning all these sketch shows.
We thought upSnuff Boxafter that.
We didnt want to do the typical sketch thing.
Such as catchphrases, for instance?
Yeah, we didnt want to do that.
So many people had done that, we wanted to do our own little special thing.
Definitely both of our collaborations had come together.
I wanted to tie things together and Matt wanted to have this weird Victorian feel to it.
We both brought something to it and it came out great.
Was the BBC open to such a show or did they take a stab at clamp down on it?
Or said we had done, but didnt.
There was only one person overseeing it, but that would never happen again.
It didnt get re-commissioned and it only went out at 11 oclock.
Its found a new life through a DVD release, though.
Now youve got a live show of your own.
What made you go for it?
Well, Ive always done stuff on my own and with other people simultaneously with theBoosh.
Ive done bits of stand up and other things but here Im largely known for theBoosh.
[TheBoosh] were going to do a US tour but it didnt work out.
So Eleanor was already a fully formed character by then?
Noel and Julian really liked the character and put her in theBooshfor one episode.
Do you find that character-based comedy can give you a bit more freedom to play around and improvise?
Yeah, it kinda does in a way.
There are bits in the show where I can go on flights of fancy.
Where did Eleanor come from then?
When did you think, This could work?
And they said I should do that as a character.
So, I went onstage and I did a gig and it went really well.
So, I thought, Why not do that in the future at some point?
It just seemed right.
I dont like to think too much, but if something feels right then just do it.
Me and Julia Davis did a short film with me as Eleanor.
Regarding Eleanor, how does it compare to your previous work?
Ive done character bits before in my stand-up.
It was a challenge too.
Weve got multimedia stuff going on so technically it was a haul to get it to work.
Its not just me on stage talking.
I had a lot of people involved.
It really came together when me and Dave Brown went to Australia.
Was it a case of you and Dave Brown throwing ideas at each other and seeing which ones stuck?
Yeah, I came to him with this.
There were so many elements in my head that I couldnt do it all by myself.
There was video, scheduling this and doing that and music.
I really bit off more than I could chew.
My girlfriend helped with the show as well, doing some VT editing.
After this show, does Eleanor have any plans for the future?
I think after this show, shes going to be interviewing people.
Im gonna try and get her a segment on the web and see where that takes us.
She can expand outside of music in terms of who she can interview.
She can be a groupie to everybody!
Exactly, and if you see the show, youll find that out.
Wrapping it up now, how do you see the current comedy scene?
TV may jump on it eventually, but its probably gonna be too late.
I think the problem is youre just not gonna find sitcoms that get 10 million viewers anymore.
Comedy is such a subjective thing, but there will always be intense fans for shows.
Are there any acts you admire?
I like Paul Foot.
I think hes great.
Its his own style and hell be around for a while.
The Pajama Men are really good.
Theyre working on something right now.
I loved Kim Nobles show, I hope he stays around.
What are your plans for the future after this show?
Well, of course, any futureBooshprojects Im gonna be involved with.
Id like to do some film stuff, but nothings set in stone yet.
Rich Fulcher, thank you for your time.
An Evening With Eleanor The Tour Whore will be playing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 21-30 August.
