If you’re a fan of comedian Noel Fielding, you’re going to get excited. Theman who starred in and co-wrote cult hit the Mighty Boosh, is about to embark on his first solo tour for five years...and it’s coming to Southend.

The comedian, who has an enormous following thanks to his work on the Boosh, plus Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy and NeverMind the Buzzcocks, is starring in a new showcalled An Evening with Noel Fielding.

It features Noel’s inimitable blend of stand-up, animation, music and appearances by some of his best-loved characters, including the Moon, the Dark Side of the Moon and Fantasy Man.

As Noel himself puts it, “You’d be a fool to miss out.

"Come along, bring your nan.

"Fancy dress optional.”

Noel and I are chatting in his north London studio.

Surrounded by props – including life-size cardboard cut-outs of a robber with a stripy jumper and a swag bag and a nun wielding a huge gun – and his own arresting paintings, hemakes for marvellously entertaining company.

The five years away from the live arena have onlywhetted Noel’s appetite for stand-up.

The performer, who has spent the last fewyears occupied by the semi-animated E4 show, Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, begins by underlining that nothing beats the rush generated by live work.

He says: “The problem with TV is it takes years tomake, and afterawhile you can’t remember what it’s like to tell a joke and get a laugh.

“The great thing about live comedy is that it cuts out the middle men – all those TV producers and directors. It takes out everything that gets in the way, so it’s just you and the audience.”

Because it’s so deeply original and innovative, Noel’s comedy can divide people. But he thinks the infectious nature of his stand-up showcan help to win over the agnostics.

He says: “Some people might think they’re allergic to you, but if they come to a live show and see everyone is laughing, it’s hard to say that it’s not funny. It was the same with the Boosh. Sceptics were convinced when they came to our shows.

“As a stand-up, you spend all day being nervous. But as soon as you step on to the stage and get the first laugh, it’smagic time. It’s like being in a dream.

It’s a real buzz.”

Noel, who for many years has been a highly-popular team captain on BBC2’s widely-loved and very long-running pop quiz NeverMind the Buzzcocks is also relishing the prospect of touring the country.

“It’s great,” he enthuses. “You get to visit all these nice places you’ve never been to before.

When you arrive at a lot of towns, you just go, ‘Wow!’”

The comedian, whowill be joined on stage in An Evening with Noel Fielding by the loose stylings of his brother Michael Fielding (best known as Naboo and Smooth from the Mighty Boosh) and the physical lunacy of TomMeeten (who plays AndyWarhol in Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy), proceeds to let us in on the plot for An Evening with Noel Fielding.

The first half is set in a cabaret club,” he reveals. “Then I get kidnapped from my own show, and in the second half the rest of the characters have to find me. I’ll be playing other characters during the second half. It becomes like a play. It’s a sort of farce.”

The showpromises a typically uplifting variety of disparate elements. “That’s why I’ve called it ‘AnEvening with Noel Fielding’, because it’s not something I’d usually do,” the comedian explains.

“It’smore like something Barry Humphries would do.”

The evening will also feature music Noel has composed with Serge Pizzorno from Kasabian and some characteristically entrancing stand-up routines.

Noel, who for many years performed with his close friend Julian Barratt in the Mighty Boosh, dubbed “The funniest comedy double act in Britain” by the NME, discloses some of the themes he will be addressing in this part of the show. “I touch on turning 40 and my Peter Pan complex. Because I’m now40, I try to do a bleak bit, but of course it soon becomes fantastical.”

As an example, Noel says he has been working up the character of ChickenMan. “He’s like a figure from a Jodorowsky Spaghetti Western. He’s half man, half chicken. He has to fight a bandit, and he’s got Tourette’s. He’s like a cross betweenAStreetcar Named Desire and FoghornLeghorn. He keeps flipping in and out of madness.”

Noel’s comedy is always richly imaginative, but can he tell if he’s gone too far? “No!” laughs the comedian, who has also acted in the IT Crowd, Nathan Barley and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. “Locked away in north London for years making Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, we’d think, ‘Let’s do something based on William Blake’s painting, the Ghost of a Flea.’ That could be very self-indulgent.

“But it could only exist on telly.

Doing stand-up, you’re edited by the audience. If you take too mad a line, you’ll lose people.”

Noel, who is hopeful that he and Julian will one day find the time to make a long-planned movie, adds: “There are certain things you just knowwill work. At one point, I play a herbal tea bag. I knew that would strike a chord, because everyone has tea.

“The ChickenMan wasmore of a gamble, but people really seem to like him. They’re also really enjoying a section where Tom plays Antonio Banderas and Michael plays Hawkeye, the living embodiment of the tennis line judge. It’s great to think up these ideas and then watch them take flight.”

So what does the comic hope that audiences will take away from “AnEvening with Noel Fielding”?

“I hope they have a really good time,” Noel declares. “I hope they laugh their heads off. I’ve always been very concerned not to sell people short. But the only danger is that the showends up as long as the film Gandhi!”

Ever philosophical, Noel adds: “I suppose if it doesn’t work, I’ll have to do something else. What would I do? Breed shire horses!”

The only drawback about touring as far as Noel is concerned is that, “You’re buzzing with adrenaline when you come off stage. You have to do something with that, and it’s very hard not to go and get drunk. In the old days, we’d give the Rolling Stones a run for their moneywith our after-showbehaviour.

“But now I’m in my forties, I have to find new ways to calm myself down.

After the show, Michael and I used to go drinking. This time we’ll have to go to mazes and local markets and drink peppermint tea.”

Unable to resist one last gag, Noel concludes: “It’s the Peppermint Tea Tour. I should have called it that!”

 An Evening with Noel Fielding comes to the Cliffs Pavilion on MondayNovember 3.

Tickets are £26, available from southend theatres.org.uk