Tonight, Film4 starts a season of films from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation studio, for the Easter holidays. I’ve been a huge fan of the work of Ghibli for some time and I’ll be visiting the studio’s enchanting museum for a second time later this year, so I’m looking forward to getting a good fix of their films over the next couple of weeks.

If you’re new to the studio’s films, though, I’ve picked my way through the listings and selected some of my favourites that you should try not to miss. Really, though, I’d suggest you record the whole lot on to your PVR and watch as much as you can. Even an average Studio Ghibli film is a work of art.

Spirited Away

6.30pm Tuesday 26th March

Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 classic has been the entry point to Ghibli for many western audiences, having won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, so it’s a natural place for Film4 to begin. The story of a ten year old girl who finds herself trapped in a wonderland full of spirits and witches while her parents are transformed into pigs is captivating from start to finish. With beautiful artwork and a gorgeous score composed by long-time Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi, Spirited Away is a great place to start. As well as this first showing with subtitles, the dubbed version will be on at 4.35pm on Saturday 6th April.

Princess Mononoke

6.05pm Wednesday 27th March

Showing here in Japanese with English subtitles and then dubbed in English at 1.10pm on Wednesday 10th April, this environmental parable set in a fantastical version of medieval Japan is breathtakingly beautiful. A complex, epic story full of impenetrable cultural references, this is still a deeply enjoyable film and one many people have as their favourite.

The Cat Returns

11am Thursday 28th March

Ghibli films often move me and fill me with wonder and joy, but very rarely do they make me laugh out loud. The Cat Returns is probably their most comic film, a loveable tale which begins when a girl saves a cat’s life and gets a surprising reward. One of the studio’s lesser-known films, it’s kind of a sequel to Whisper of the Heart, showing later, or it could be said that it is a story written by the main character of that film. It is showing here with subtitles, but it’s a great film for kids and the dubbed version is on at 3pm on Sunday 7th April.

Kiki’s Delivery Service

4.45pm Friday 29th March

One of Miyazaki’s most easily accessible films, this is a coming of age story about a young witch who goes out into the big wide world and tries to earn a living. Film4 are showing Disney’s dubbed version and this is one of the few films where I’d recommend this over the original subtitled version, all because of Simpsons star Phil Hartman’s terrific turn as Kiki’s sardonic cat Jiji, his final role before his tragic death.

My Neighbour Totoro

4.55pm Saturday 30th March

One of the greatest children’s films ever made, perhaps THE greatest, My Neighbour Totoro is pure, innocent joy from the first frame to the last. In post-war Japan, two girls go with their father to live in the countryside while their mother recovers from tuberculosis in hospital. There, they meet Totoro, a large, cuddly spirit who looks after the forest. From their first sight of the soot sprites who had been living in their dusty old house to their ride on the grinning Catbus, Mei and Satsuki’s magical adventure lifts the spirits every time.

Pom Poko

2.35pm Thursday 4th April

This is a bit of an odd one. It starts off like an animated documentary, complete with narration, before becoming a comic tale about shape-shifting raccoon dogs with prominent magical testicles (no, really) and then takes a dark turn towards Watership Down territory. While Miyazaki is rightly hailed as a genius, it is the other regular Ghibli director Isao Takahata who constantly innovates and pushes boundaries, and this is one of his most interesting films.

Whisper Of The Heart

2.40pm Friday 5th April

I utterly adore Whisper of the Heart, on the surface a simple teenage love story, but really a film about the joys and frustrations of being a creative person, about the hard work, determination and passion it takes to be a writer, artist, musician or whatever else you might want to be. There is one scene in this film that melts my waxy pea-sized heart every single time, although unfortunately only the dub is being shown here – the original version with subtitles is so much better. Do try to catch this on the channel, as it’s not one of the films that is likely to be shown often. Yoshifumi Kondō’s first film as director, sadly he died only a few years later so we never got to see what else he might have produced.

Grave Of The Fireflies

12.15am Friday 5th April

Probably the most heartbreaking animated film ever made, Takahata’s masterpiece is a horribly difficult watch but absolutely must not be missed. There are very few films that have so brutally and heartachingly portrayed the impact of war on the innocents. Once watched, this film is never forgotten. Bring tissues.

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

2.30pm Thursday 11th April

The first film to be released by the studio back in 1986, Castle in the Sky is a ripping fantasy adventure set in a world of flying cities. A great chance to see how incredible the studio’s output was right from the start.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Saturday 13th April

The season concludes with a film which isn’t strictly-speaking from Ghibli, coming from 1984, before the studio was formed. An exciting post-apocalyptic fantasy set in a world with giant insects, the film was cut to ribbons in an appalling 1980s English dub, but here it’s presented in the original Japanese with subtitles.

Also showing…

Porco Rosso 4.35pm, Thursday 28th March. An Italian WWI ace fighter pilot is turned into an anthropomorphic pig and hunts down airborne pirates. This film is even more fun than it sounds.

Arrietty 5.15pm Sunday 31st March. Delightful retelling of The Borrowers, this is the dubbed version with a terrific British cast including Olivia Colman and Geraldine McEwan.

Howl’s Moving Castle 4.35pm Monday 1st April dubbed in English and Friday 12th April in Japanese with subtitles. One of Miyazaki’s most popular films, based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones.

The Castle Of Cagliostro 3.15pm Tuesday 2nd April. Miyazaki’s directorial debut from 1979, this instalment in the Lupin III anime franchise is great fun, although the dub isn’t too good.

Ponyo 2.50pm Wednesday 3rd April. This incredibly sweet children’s film from 2008 broadly based on The Little Mermaid is Miyazaki’s most recent and is ever so cute.

Ocean Waves 11am Thursday 4th April. Not often seen, as it was made for TV rather than cinematic release, a man spots an woman in a crowded railway station and tells the story of how he first met her in high school.

Tales From Earthsea 2.25pm Monday 8th April. Directed by Hayao’s son Gorō Miyazaki, this is probably the least well-received of the studio’s films. Perhaps worth a watch just for that reason?

Only Yesterday 12.55pm Tuesday 9th April. Another of Takahata’s boundary-pushing films, this drama follows a woman in her late 20s as she stuggles with her career and romance while she reflects on the trials of growing up in the 1960s.

Little Norse Prince 11am Thursday 11th April. Takahata’s directorial debut from way back in 1968, which Miyazaki worked on as well, is an epic set in pre-Viking era Scandinavia.

Countdown

Green and Pleasant Land

Pandemonium

Happy & Glorious

Second to the right, and straight on till morning

Interlude

frankie & june say… Thanks Tim

Abide With Me

Welcome

Bike a.m.

Let the Games Begin

There is a Light That Never Goes Out

And in the end…

2012 was a weird old year, it turned out to be one of the best of my life even though it didn’t start out feeling that way. I was counting down the last six months working for the company I’d been at for the previous ten. It was an odd last six months, too, having left the old office, a big, busy place (but not overwhelmingly so), and moved into a small room with just a dozen people. It also involved working in Paris quite often – not as glamorous as it sounds, with early starts to get on the Eurostar and lots of work to do. But it was still lots of fun, working with a great bunch of people and having some good evenings at the Irish pub across the road from the office in Paris, with the nights during Euro 2012 when the pub would be full of Dutch, Germans, French, English, Irish and lots of others to watch games.

When those six months were coming to an end, I had to start looking for a new job, something I’d not had to do for a decade. I started by applying for sort of “dream jobs”, planning to move on to others I thought of as having a more realistic chance of getting later. But in the end, I didn’t need to. Somehow, I have no idea how, I got an interview for the first thing I applied for and a few weeks later found out I’d got the job.

I really do love what I’m doing now. Without going into too much detail, it involves editing and writing some of the programme descriptions which appear on the BBC website and when you press the ‘i’ button on EPGs, as well as updating the schedules when things change, such as live sport going over the scheduled time. It involves spending two days a week in an office in Ealing, a part of London I’m still getting to know – it’s nice and leafy, but I don’t think I’ll take it to my heart in the way I did with Whitechapel and Shoreditch. It also involves two shifts a week (either starting very early in the morning or finishing late at night) working in Playout, where the BBC network TV channels come from. I cannot begin to describe how thrilling this is, getting to sit right in the middle of where everything is happening, working alongside the directors and continuity announcers, and having to deal with all the excitement and unpredictability of live telly. Perhaps one day I’ll get used to it but for now even when I think I’m totally settled in, I still occasionally get moments when I suddenly realise where I am and get a sudden rush of excitement.

As well as going to Paris for work, I went for a weekend at Disneyland Paris with my son, which was loads of fun. Last time I was there I was about 15 years old and it has changed a lot in the meantime, at least doubling in size. We had such a great time there, making the most of the three days, which was pretty much the perfect length of time to stay there. And then there was the unforgettable trip to New York, which I’ve already written about on this blog.

2012 was dominated in London by the Olympics and Paralympics, which were better than I could have ever imagined. After several disappointments with applying for tickets, I was lucky enough to log on to the ticketing website at exactly the right time to get tickets to the Opening Ceremony for just £20.12 each. I’ve posted some photos from the ceremony here. I was also lucky enough to see some other sports, including hockey, football, archery and the thrilling wheelchair rugby. The Olympic Park was a great place to be, and surprisingly beautiful in parts, with it’s wild flowers and quiet corners. Away from the events themselves, London was a great place to be during a glorious few weeks of sunshine, with big screens in the parks, things to see all over the city from all of the competing nations and excitement in the air, with the feeling that the whole world had come to visit.

It was a summer, and a year, I’ll never forget.

There’s one, last, other thing that’s happening at the moment that I’d rather not talk about for fear of jinxing it. If it goes well, it might be the greatest thing ever, if it doesn’t then, well, it won’t be. But whatever happens, it has made me finally realise for myself that there is truth behind some advice that has been handed down through the ages but is usually ignored until you experience it for yourself – it really is better to do something, even if it might go wrong, than to not do it and always wonder what might have happened. Whatever ends up happening, I’ll never have to wonder what might have been. And that’s a great feeling.

I’ve finally got round to finishing off the New York stuff I’d started writing over half a year ago and given the site a bit of a refresh. It still needs tidying up and there’s a lot of posts I need to pull in from elsewhere, and probably a few I might as well get rid of.

And then I’ll get back to writing about life and telly and that. Or at least I’ll give it a go for a while.

Here, have a photo of some snow. Just because.

Created by British theatre company Punchdrunk, who are also staging an intriguing Doctor Who tie-in show in Ipswich as part of this summer’s Cultural Olympiad, it’s an immersive theatrical experience, where instead of sitting down to watch a performance you walk around the set and discover the characters for yourself. And what a set it is, 100 rooms over five floors inside three converted warehouses in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. There are only two rules – you should not talk and you must wear a chilling plague doctor-style white beaked mask at all times.

I read a small amount about it beforehand, enough to know that it’s set in a hotel and is an abstract, noirish take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth with a liberal sprinkling of Hitchcockian references, particularly to Vertigo (it’s called the McKittrick Hotel and Bernard Herrmann’s score can be heard at times) and Rebecca (the hotel bar is called the Manderley and one of the characters may or may not be the second Mrs. de Winter). Other than that, I felt it best to go in without knowing much about the show.

For that reason, if you’ll be in New York soon and are planning to go, it’s probably a good idea not to read on beyond this paragraph, where I’ll go into more detail about my night in the McKittrick. It’s best to have your first Sleep No More experience (I’ve since learned that many people have gone multiple times) spoiler-free. What I would say, though, is to make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes as you’ll be doing a lot of walking and sometimes running up and down stairs. It’s worth knowing that the performances loop three times over the three hours, each time climaxing in a version of Macbeth’s famous banquet scene, which can help you get your bearings, with the banquet having a different ending at the end of the night. Also, there’s no right or wrong way to experience Sleep No More, whether you prefer to explore the rooms on your own and take in their rich detail or follow a character around to see their story arc play out, it’s a rewarding experience.

Again, what follows is a lengthy account of my personal experience of the show, but it does contain lots of spoilers so please don’t read on if you’re planning on experiencing it for yourself.

As I queued outside with my friend Liam, someone in front of us asked the doorman when the performance starts. “As soon as you step through the door” came the reply. We walked in an found ourselves in a dimly lit hotel lobby. After checking our coats in the cloakroom, we walked up to the reception where we were offered two cards and asked to pick. I got the two of clubs, Liam the three. We were then led up some stairs into a pitch-black maze of fabric-lined corridors, the only light coming from the corners. Already I was disoriented, not quite knowing which direction I was now facing as I emerged into a glamorous red 1940s jazz bar. I noticed a woman sat at a table dressed like Jessica Rabbit who I hadn’t seen in the queue and realised she was a character. We ordered a couple of drinks (NOT the absinth shots that were on offer, though) and stood by the bar as a man with an undone bow tie around his collar walked up to the Shure 55 microphone on stage and, in a slow monotone drawl, told those with ace cards to drink up and follow him. A few minutes later he returned, and simply said “Deuces” – it was my turn.

I followed him into a small side room with around a dozen others where we were given our masks and he instructed us that there will be “no more voices”. Next, the woman I’d seen earlier came in to tell us that we must always keep our masks on and that if it all gets too much for us, we can always go and find her in the bar, “I like the company”. Finally, we were shepherded into a goods lift where we were met by a porter who told us as we were going up several floors that “fortune favours the brave”. I was standing right next to the door, but as he opened it he said “ladies first”. A girl standing next to me edged towards the darkness beyond but squealed before she crossed the threshold. Another woman who was behind us both bravely stepped forward and before anyone else could follow, the porter slammed the lift door shut, leaving her out there, wherever “out there” was. We moved up or down a floor – I couldn’t quite tell – and with the adrenalin now pumping through my body I was ready to walk through the door and into the unknown. I noticed the previously squeamish girl had followed me but couldn’t sense whether anyone else did – certainly the full ten or so others from the lift weren’t behind me as I walked down the barely lit corridor.

The first room I came across was a long hospital ward with around eight beds, each with a crucifix and detailed medical notes. I hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of being hands-on with the set yet, but if I had I’d apparently have discovered that one of the beds was full of potatoes. There was a matron’s station to one side of the ward, while the other was so dark I couldn’t see what was there. As I edged closer I saw that there was a baby’s cot in that corner of the ward. I wasn’t quite ready for that level of creepiness yet and backed away, moving towards a doorway on the side of the ward. There, I found myself in a corridor with a doorway leading to another large space and another which lead to a much smaller room. I went to the small room first, it had a candlelit ambience and some religious icons on a high shelf. In the centre of the room was a display cabinet with frames containing nails (somehow I thought crucifixion nails) arranged in different pattens. Very creepy. I felt like I was walking thorough a videogame, something like Resident Evil 4. I went back through the other doorway where the eeriness notched up another level. There were a number of baths laid out in a similar pattern to the beds in the hospital ward and there, in the middle of the room, was a nurse repeatedly, almost mechanically, lifting a shirt in and out of the bath water. Then came perhaps the only moment that the dread turned to out-and-out fear for me – it didn’t register with me at first but after a few moments I saw a figure in a white mask staring through the window at her. It was another audience member, perhaps someone I’d shared the lift with, but for that brief moment they were terrifying.

I went out of the door and discovered a forest maze of sticks and twigs. There was a cool breeze in the air, it felt like I was outside, and as I made my way around I discovered a small wooden cabin. It was locked but I pressed my eye up against a tiny gap in the wood and could just about see a teapot and cup on a table with cut pages of a book hanging above it. I mistakenly thought it was a puzzle and took a little too long trying to figure it out. Eventually, I moved on, back into the hospital corridor where I discovered that this was a psychiatric hospital – there was a psychologist’s office with more cut up pages and notes on the desk about the disturbed Lady Macbeth, another room with a microscope and slides, a creepy room with what looks like an old dentists chair and some instruments of either surgery or torture and, most disturbingly of all, a padded cell with a straitjacket on the stained floor and feathers sticking out of the wall.

I continued on to the stairs, where I saw that I was on the fifth floor and access up to the sixth was blocked by someone in wearing a similar mask to mine, but instead of white it was black. This was one of the ushers in this most unusual of theatres. These “black masks” are dotted around the rooms, there to help anyone who feels overcome, point out the way to the toilets or, as in this case, stop you going where you’re not supposed to.

I went down to the third floor (I don’t know why I skipped past the fourth) and found my first big crowd of the night. They were in a grand, palatial bedroom, gathered around a bathtub where who I presumed was Lady Macbeth was giving Macbeth a bath, washing blood off him. As she dried him off, I walked over to the French window which looked out over a foggy, desolate courtyard. As I wandered around, I saw a hooded statue in the gloom. At the time, I couldn’t be sure if it was a statue or a person in costume and I didn’t want to get any closer to find out. So, I went back to the safety of the bedroom. Macbeth was now gone, along with most of the crowd. Lady Macbeth was in bed and started to play out a wonderful interpretation of the sleepwalking scene. Until now I have never understood the appeal of modern dance, but this had everything – the gymnastic way she convulsed and backflipped on the bed, the manic terror on her face as she went to the bath and tried to wash off the imaginary blood on her hands, the spider-like way she clambered backwards up the bedroom furniture into a hidden glass box in the wall, it was all incredible. Unashamedly, anonymous behind our masks, my fellow voyeurs and I watched as she disrobed in the glass box and put on a dress.

What followed was a bit of a blur. I followed Lady Macbeth for a while along with several others. We arrived on the fourth floor, an Edwardian street, where we ran into Macbeth being followed by his own audience, like two gangs marching towards each other in West Side Story. We then went down to the second floor, the hotel, where we went down to the ballroom for the banquet where a bloodied Banquo’s ghost appeared. Sat at the table were several characters I hadn’t seen at all on my travels so far. On the way back up stairs, one of the characters pushed past me, rushing to get somewhere. I found Lady Macbeth again, this time up in the hospital, where the nurse bathed her.

I then had a wander around on my own, finding all sorts of things. A sweet shop stocked full of humbugs and fruit chews, where I joined a girl in a white mask who was helping herself to the treats behind the counter. A graveyard where I could feel the cold soil under my feet. A photographic dark room hidden away behind some curtains, where photos of a murder victim were being developed. An incredibly creepy room where a cot was surrounded by dozens of headless dolls. A musty living room full of the smell of old books, where the pregnant, ill-fated Lady Mcduff was dancing with such vigour that she was slamming herself into the furniture, before literally climbing up the walls of the hallway outside, dancing with her husband on a shelf. Letters, books, diaries featuring lines from the play. A cupboard I opened containing photo of a bird and a feather-stuffed photo frame with playing cards pinned to the insides of the doors. A hotel breakfast room dominated by a stuffed moose, where I found Lady Macduff eating some toast and then dancing with a nurse across the tables and chairs, at one point pirouetting me out of the way so an elaborate move could be performed. A funeral parlour with notes pinned to an empty coffin and a hint of lavender in the air. A hidden speakeasy made out of cardboard boxes where two men had a dance-fight on a pool table with a lamp swinging overhead. A crypt where a character (perhaps Duncan?) lay dead and was being mourned by others. I didn’t know what had happened to him. And lots of going up and down stairs, sometimes at my own pace, sometimes running after characters.

This is me in my mask. Even I scare myself.

We then went back down to the ballroom where the banquet scene took place again, resetting everything to the beginning of the loop. I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was Liam. Silently, with nods and points, we explored the final hour together, pointing out places we’d found that the other might not have spotted. I took him to the forest, which was not empty this time. The nurse was walking around the maze, going back and forth, sometimes stopping and sometimes running. As she stopped at the corner near the cabin, a bright light shone through the wood and she got a piece of chalk, scrawling a line from the play on a tree with a look of angst and terror on her face. Suddenly, she fainted, her head landing at my feet. From nowhere, another nurse appeared and carefully helped her to her feet. A few more people joined us as they walked to the cabin in the woods, which was now unlocked. The second nurse sat down and cradled the first on a chair inside. Then, the second nurse left and the first took the hand of an audience member standing next to me and brought her inside the cabin, slamming the door shut. We couldn’t see what happened inside.

Later, Liam beckoned me to a room I hadn’t found before. It was the bar we had started in, except it wasn’t – it was exactly the same, but as if it had been left to rot for the best part of a century. The well-stocked bar was now all empty glasses and cobwebs, chairs were piled up in the corner, the room was illuminated by a low, blueish hue. Macbeth appeared, followed by the people I didn’t recognise from the banquet, what I now know are the witches. This was to be perhaps the most famous scene in the play, the Weird Sisters’ prophecies. Up until now the music had been a mix of Glenn Miller, Peggy Lee, Billy Holiday and Herrmann’s Hitchcock themes. But now some electro beats started to fade up as the witches and Macbeth started to dance and we gathered in a circle around them. As the music built up, their clothes started to come off and the lighting got darker when there was sudden quick flash which made it seem that all that could be seen was the circle of white masks. And then loud, thumping full-on jungle kicked in, with strobe lights and green lazers, a naked guy with a goat’s head, topless witches, and Macbeth’s face smeared with blood. It was Eyes Wide Shut set in the dance tent at Glastonbury. To think, I would have completely missed that scene if I hadn’t bumped into Liam.

We then went down to the ballroom one last time to see the banquet again, but this time with a very different, spectacular denouement. After that, we were ushered back to the bar, where a lively party was in full swing, a jazz band on the stage and seemingly hundreds of now maskless audience members were packed in, having a drink.

It was an astonishing night. As we walked away from the McKittrick, just like all the other groups of friends, we compared our journeys, telling each other about the moments only one of us saw. Even now, days after, I can’t shake it out of my mind.

Looking online in the time since, I’ve discovered things neither of us got to see. Occasionally the person who goes out of the lift first finds themselves on the forbidden sixth floor, where they are pushed in a wheelchair by one of the nurses and treated to the opening lines from Rebecca. Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, sits in the corner of the dilapidated bar and sometimes asks an audience member to deliver a message – if they pass the test, they are taken into a hidden room where they are given a cup of tea and told a story about a boat, before a paper boat is put in their tea which turns it blood-red and it starts to rain. I’ve even heard unconfirmed rumours that collecting a set of specific objects will grant you access to a series of hidden rooms which finishes up with you being allowed to become a character for the rest of the evening.

I don’t know what I enjoyed the most. Wandering around the beautifully decorated and incredibly detailed set. Watching the extraordinarily acrobatic and expressive dancing. Being freaked out by the dark corners and disturbing scenes. Chasing after actors like contestants running after Richard O’Brien in the Crystal Maze. Taking in the period music and gorgeous costumes. Feeling like I was in the middle of a living and breathing David Lynch movie. Seeing some boobies. There was so much to enjoy.

Sleep No More was one of a number of unforgettable memories I’ve brought back from New York. I’d strongly recommend that anyone who has the chance to experience it does so. No idea if it’ll come to London at any point, but if Punchdrunk’s other productions are as good as this, I’ll definitely keep an eye out for anything they put on in future.

The hangover. Oh, dear lord, the hangover. It was a bad one. I lay in bed for hours, awake but completely unable to move. Everything hurt. We listened on the radio to commentary of Spurs’ disappointing 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, just to add to the sense of misery. Bleary-eyed, we rolled out to the deli next to the hotel to get some breakfast, but all I could manage was some crisps and orange juice. It was time to get ready though – there was a ball game to go to.

On the train to the Citi Field Stadium in Flushing Meadow, we had the same pallid, sickly, tired, morning-after look that most people heading to early Sunday matches in the Premier League have. Normally we’d have blended in, but not here – this baseball crowd were all chirpy and fresh-faced and wide awake. It was all wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

The Citi Field Stadium. An example of exactly how to build a modern stadium.

Arriving at the stadium, though, things started to pick up and I started to wake up. For a new build, it was a gorgeous place. Instead of the soulless plastic of so many modern stadiums, it seemed to have the history of the New York Mets woven into the very fabric of the building. It was a very different experience to going to a football ground, with the ability to freely walk all the away around the stadium. With all of the food and drink stands and merchandise shops, it at times felt like a shopping mall attached to a baseball park, but that was a lot more preferable to the grim concrete concourses I’m used to. Sitting down to watch the New York Mets take on Arizona Diamondbacks I soon found that, despite expecting to know what was going on thanks to all those years playing rounders at school, I clearly didn’t know a lot about the rules of baseball. At times, the crowd would cheer for no obvious reason, at others I would be struggling to work out why a player was called out. Despite that, it was a really enjoyable afternoon, with a couple of drinks and a delicious hot dog helping the hangover no end.

Inside the stadium.

Once again, I felt like I was in a movie, with all of the clichés like a blooper reel on the big screen, a “kiss cam” and of course a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. Every time the Mets scored a home run, a big apple rose out of the ground beneath the scoreboard. At one point, someone in my row bought a hot dog, passing the money along one way, and then we passed the food back to them – something I’m not sure would quite work back home. Later we watched standing at the back, in the warm, relaxing sunshine. It was a perfect day for it. The only drawback was that it was a comparatively very quick game, over in just over a couple of hours. But I’d decided the Mets would be my team from now on, so I got a couple of things from the main store and then spent some time in the excellent museum, looking back at the history of the team.

Yes, there was a t-shirt cannon. We all remember what happened to Maude Flanders.

It was a wonderfully clear, sunny day and the train back gave some great views of Manhattan. There would be just enough time to finally visit the Top of the Rock. We headed to the Rockefeller Center, home of NBC, and after a bit of a queue, introductory video and photo opportunity involving that iconic picture of builders eating lunch on a girder hanging high above the city, it was time to get in the lift. They put on quite a show, with lights and video projected onto the elevator’s glass ceiling as we went up to the 68th floor.

The view north from the Top of the Rock.

The views were spectacular. Looking south, the view from 30 Rock is better than the view from the Empire State Building, because it includes the Empire State Building. It was such a clear day that it was easy to see very, very far – pretty much the entirety of New York City and a little bit beyond. I’ve never been good with heights, but could somehow cope here because of the tall panes of glass all around. I tried to go to the very, very top, which was a little more exposed to elements, but it was so crowded and narrow that I had to quickly get back down to safer ground. It was a great way to round off the trip, seeing exactly how the city fits together and looking back at all of the places I’d visited.

Wisdom, a gorgeous Art Deco frieze above the entrance to 30 Rock.

After that, it was time to quickly pack and check out from the hotel and then head back to JFK Airport as the sun was going down. The airport itself was a bit of a let-down, with most shops and restauants being closed even early in the evening, perhaps because it was a Sunday, but it was a very busy time with lots of passengers milling around, looking for something to do. The flight home, meanwhile, mainly involved catching up on lots and lots of sleep.

It was an unforgettable trip, packing so much into four short days. I already really can’t wait to go back.

Till next time…

The morning started with another walk to the Rockefeller Center to see if it would be a good day to visit the observation gallery, the Top of the Rock, but it was too cloudy again. So instead we headed to Central Park, stopping to have a look at the Plaza Hotel (only because, of course, it was the one in Home Alone 2). After walking for what seemed like a while, past the famous horse carriages, we got the subway a couple of stops but were still in the lower end of the park.

The memorial to John Lennon in Central Park.

We saw the Dakota Building, famous as a home to actors, singers and artists, infamous as the place John Lennon was murdered. We also saw the nearby Strawberry Fields memorial, with its “Imagine” mosaic, and Bethesda Terrace, with the famous fountain seen in everything from films to Grand Theft Auto IV. Central Park is not at all like the parks in Central London, it’s much less flat and a lot more rocky. But, like London’s parks, it’s a tranquil, beautiful place, something it’s so important to have in a big city.

Next stop was Columbus Circle, where we headed to the bar near the top of the Manderin Hotel. Despite being slightly scruffily dressed, we were treated like VIPs by the attentive staff. It all felt ever so classy. There were some glorious views over Central Park to enjoy, and I could see that what I thought had been a very long walk deep into the park had actually barely gone a quarter of the way into it. I had easily the most delicious glass of Prosceo I’ve ever had (perhaps the thirst after all the walking helped) and an amazing Twitter-themed cocktail, the most expensive drinks of the whole trip by a very long way, but worth every cent.

This cocktail was inspired by Twitter, somehow. I have no idea what’s in it apart from pink, but it’s bloody delicious.

It was lunchtime, so we headed down to Shake Shack near Times Square. The queues there are notoriously long, but for good reason – it was worth the wait. I couldn’t be sure, but perhaps the burger there wasn’t quite as good as Five Guys, but it was a very close-run thing. But, either way, the milkshake I had with it was divine. I’ve had some of the tastiest food of my life on this trip.

Walking down the street, some tourists from mid-western America approached to ask directions, thinking I was a New Yorker. It’s something that’s happened to other Londoners I’ve spoken to, it seems we have a similar way about us. I certainly felt like I’d instantly fit in with the city, even if the pace was a few bpm faster than London, I felt I could easily live and work there and I got the feeling that Londoners and New Yorkers have more in common with each other than with people from the small towns of our own countries.

Meet the Beast.

We walked down to the Circle Line cruise terminal on the west side of Manhattan. While others were boarding boats to spend a leisurely couple of hours cruising around the Statue of Liberty, we were preparing for something quite different. THE BEAST. As I took my seat in the speedboat alongside several other passengers, I didn’t know quite what to expect. It was going to be fast, sure, but I had no idea quite how fast. Soon enough, we were all tearing down the Hudson River, feeling as if a force-nine gale was blowing in our faces as we were bounced up and down in our seats to the sound of Guns’n'Roses blasting out of the boat’s sound system. It was an amazing experience to see so much of the city go by so quickly, before stopping by Liberty Island to catch our breath and take a few photos and then zooming back to where we started.

A famous old lady.

We took a bus back to the hotel to prepare for the night ahead. Before heading to Brooklyn, we went back to Times Square, this time to see how it looked in the evening. I saw five, maybe six Elmos walking around. There was a real buzz in the air, a sense of excitement all around, but it was incredibly crowded, even more so than I was expecting, and just like places like Leicester Square back home it wasn’t somewhere I’d want to stay for very long. Walking down Broadway towards Penn station, the bright glow of Times Square followed us for a long time, making everything else seem very dark and murky.

Times Square at night. Dazzling.

After taking the train to Willamsburg, we went back to the Leevy, one of the highlights of the first night. While it was still nice, it didn’t seem quite as good the second time around, although we did discover a whole other half of the bar that we didn’t realise existed before. From there, we walked down to the Brooklyn Ale House. Now, this was a proper place. Dirt cheap booze, good music playing, but quiet enough to have a conversation (including one where we both simultaneously lost the ability to perform very simple sums while trying to work out what to put in our spending kitty). There wasn’t anything particularly spectacular about the place, you might even call it a dive bar, but it’s the sort of place you’d like to call your local.

After that, we walked down the road to a bar that sits right at the opposite end of the spectrum, but was just as enjoyable. Outside the Hotel Delmano, a doorman with a perfectly waxed hipster moustache thanked us for our patience as we waited for a table. Inside the busy, moodily-lit bar, I had an usual cocktail containing cider, rum and ginger. Not sure about the combination, but it was an interesting one. Then a waiter came over with a cheeseboard. We weren’t sure if it was complimentary or someone elses, but we hadn’t ordered it. After weighing up the decision, the cheese was eaten, and then it was added to the bill. This cheeseboard confusion would end up providing a hilarious anecdote we’ll be telling pretty much forever. Yes, hilarious. No, you shut up.

A drink.

We next had a drink in a place called Soft Spot, which seemed to be genuinely lovely place but one that we’d visited at the wrong time. It wasn’t very busy at all and the atmosphere was pretty much dead. It was quite the opposite at the Greenpoint Tavern, an Irish bar that seemed to sell beer by the bucket. The busiest bar of the night, with Springsteen on the jukebox, neon shamrocks in the window and a crowd of mostly very large, fairly scary-looking but actually quite friendly people, it seemed like I’d walked into a scene from a 1980s movie about truckers. And I mean that in a good way. After that, a great bar called Iona, where we spotted Tottenham Hotspur memorabilia above the bar and chatted to the barman about Premier League football, while a terrific DJ was playing some really good music.

We weren’t sure about where to make our final stop, but most people we asked recommended Union Pool. As we walked in it’s general direction, vaguely towards the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, I asked a passer-by for directions. “That way, man!”, he slurred as he pointed the way, “Have a great time! There’s loads of pussy!”. Right. Well, in that case. “Um, thanks”, I replied as he tottered off to presumably collapse in a nearby gutter. I was felt like I was suddenly in a teen frathouse comedy. Probably one of the straight-to-DVD American Pies.

Union Pool, it turns out, was a great place. There were three sections. The first was like a standard corner pub with a small bar where they were selling cans of Bud for next-to-nothing. Then there was a large outdoor area, where there was a terrific atmosphere and we found ourselves talking to some apparently French guys who didn’t sound very French. It felt less like a bar and much more like a house party. And finally, there was a room with a DJ and a dancefloor, playing some great music with all sorts of visuals projected onto a screen behind him. He ended, of course, with the Beastie Boys. When he played the final track of the night, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, with all of the emotion following Adam Yauch’s passing, I just felt so honoured to be there, like an outsider being welcomed into a very personal moment for everyone else in the room. Right there, for a very brief moment, it felt like that room was the centre of the universe. It was very, very special.

We got a cab back to the hotel. Fight for Your Right to Party came on the radio. We asked the driver to turn up the volume, and we yelled out the lyrics as we drove across the East River.

MOM, YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS, IT’S THE BEASTIE BOYS!

We were quite drunk.

The day started with a trip to Lower Manhattan. First stop, Wall Street, because, well, you have to, don’t you? I’d been expecting to find myself on the grandest of boulevards, having already seen how much else of New York is wide and tall. So I was astonished to find that one of the city’ most famous streets was tiny and narrow, virtually an alleyway in comparison to the streets elsewhere. Somehow this discovery made it all the more interesting, in a city I seemed to already know so well, how could I know so little about this place?

We got breakfast in the nearby Pearl Diner. A proper, old fashioned diner, where the feeling of having stepped into a film was greater than ever. Sat in a booth, I had some delicious bacon, egg and hash browns, as the construction workers and cops came in to get some food. When the waitress came over to top up drinks with exactly the same coffee pot that’s been in every movie ever, the experience was complete.

We then walked the few blocks to what for the last decade has been known as Ground Zero, but now as the new buildings near completion is starting to be thought of once again as the World Trade Center. I’d been feeling uneasy about visiting the site as a tourist, it felt a little ghoulish to include a trip to the site of nearly three thousand deaths in an otherwise fun weekend, and the sight of people selling trinkets and souvenirs on the street nearby made it feel even worse. But there was something else that made me want to see more – watching everyday New Yorkers, who I’d started to realise are like Londoners in many ways, going about their business in these streets made the events of 2001 somehow feel, for want of a better word, more real. I watched the events of September 11 2001 unfold on a tiny television set in the mountains of the northern Philippines. I can’t even relate to the way people I talk to who watched it in London felt, wondering if they might be hit next, as I really was a world away from what was happening. But now, seeing the sorts of people who would’ve been caught up in those events walking past me in the street and eating in the booth next to me in the diner, seeing that they were people just like me, removed all of that distance in an instant. I needed to see more.

Although the 9/11 memorial was now open, the main large museum on the site was still under construction. However, there was a smaller museum nearby, opened by some of the families, full of artifacts I will never forget. A menu from the Windows on the World restaurant, knives and forks bent out of shape from the heat of the impact, a wall covered in posters put up by people searching for missing loved ones. And, so hauntingly, a small piece of one of the planes, with the unmistakable shape of a aircraft window. I was stuck by the thought that someone was looking out of that window on that morning, and it’s a thought that I don’t think will ever leave me.

The 9/11 Memorial. The sense of sorrow in this place is sometimes too much to take in.

Outside was a fire station, still in operation and the first to respond on that day, suffering so many losses. Every time I saw a fire truck go past in the city, I noticed it carried a list of its station’s lost, with that one date dominating. On the outside was a large bronze plaque with an image of firefighters racing to the towers, something I imagine will still be there for years, probably centuries to come. We then went into the memorial. While the museum was intimate, this was all about scale. It was difficult, nearly impossible, to take it all in. The footprints of the two towers were marked with two enormous holes, with waterfalls noisily gushing in. The names of the victims were inscribed around the edges, too many to count. And above it all was the new tower, disappearing into the clouds. While the museum was full of tiny details which slowly built up to give an understanding of the sadness and horror of what happened on this site, here it was perhaps too overwhelming to take it all in – so many names, such huge buildings now gone – with the beauty of the park that now stands here making the events of that day all the more unimaginable.

It was an emotional experience, the museum in particular showing the most pivotal international event of my lifetime for what it really was – thousands of heartbreaking personal tragedies that happened to innocent, everyday people. At times it was very difficult, but it is a place I would recommend every visitor to the city to see. I looked around at some tall, old buildings overlooking the site, trying to absorb the fact that these same buildings bore witness to everything that happened here. That these were the very same buildings people would have been staring out of their office windows at that morning. We walked down to Battery Park to see one more reminder of that day, The Sphere, the damaged and dented sculpture that was once sited between the twin towers and was pulled from the rubble and placed here.

The Sphere. Pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Centre.

We then walked to the nearby ferry terminal to get on the Staten Island Ferry, something pretty much everyone who goes to New York does. Mainly because it’s free. It was really nice to stand on the deck with a beer from the on-board bar and watch the Statue of Liberty go by with a light breeze in my face. Really lovely. There was plenty else to see along the journey, from the New Jersey shore to the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner, and was a good chance to gather my thoughts after a weighty morning before moving on to the fun things later in the day. Of course, like most tourists, as soon as we got to Staten Island we immediately walked through the terminal and got the next ferry back.

It was then time for lunch at the Stone Street Tavern, which was a nice bar with friendly staff in the middle of the financial district, and it didn’t feel too dissimilar to a pub in the City of London at lunchtime on a working day. We then decided to walk north, which might have been a bit of a mistake because the skies were clearing and it was starting to get very, very hot. I found myself looking up throughout the journey at the stone, gothic skyscrapers, nothing like the tall glass and steel buildings I’ve seen elsewhere in the world. Along the way, we also found the fire station used in Ghostbusters. It was weird to think that as a young kid I played with a toy version of this very building and now here it was in front of me, looking much smaller and hidden away than I’d expected. We also thought we might have seen the apartment used in the external shots in Friends (it probably wasn’t, but we’ll gloss over that), before stopping for a thrist-quenching drink at an “English”-themed pub, which was probably the least impressive place we visited, perhaps because it just felt like a run-of-the-mill fairly dull pub back home.

YES IT’S THE GHOSTBUSTERS’ HOUSE!

From there, feeling a little exhausted after a long walk in the heat, we arrived at Bleecker Street, for a drink in Off the Wagon, where we went the day before. I had a cider, which tasted like apple flavoured Jolly Ranchers, quite different to any I’ve had before, and rather lovely. As we walked down Bleecker Street towards another bar we wanted to try, the Village Lantern, we were hearing the sound of the Beastie Boys from every passing car, hearing the news from the radio that MCA, Adam Yauch, had died. The only thing I remember like it was a few years before, when you could hear Michael Jackson from every radio. We then got a cab back to the hotel meaning we’d seen all the way from the tip of Lower Manhattan up to midtown.

We then returned to Chelsea, to some warehouses that had been converted into the McKittrick Hotel, to take in the extraordinary immersive theatrical experience that is Sleep No More. I’ve written in some detail about the show here, although that contains spoilers – so all I’ll say for now is that it was the most unforgettable, beautiful, unsettling and amazing works of art I have experienced. Walking around in silence, wearing a mask and interacting with the characters, fellow audience members and the six floors of corridors, hopsital wards, bedrooms, offices, streets, graveyards and forests was just incredible.

The Empire State Building. This is as far as I got.

It was also very tiring, after three hours of walking and running, often up and down several flights of stairs. We had dinner at McDonalds, partly because it didn’t involve much walking but mainly just because I wanted to see what the difference is – the answer is much bigger portions, the taste is exactly the same – before entering the famous lobby of the Empire State Building, thinking of going up to the top. But even at this time of the evening, the queues were much too long, so we headed back to the hotel.

It was an amazing day, but my feet hurt. Really hurt. I mean, really, really, really hurt. All worth it, though.

New York was always the next place on my list. As a born and bred Londoner, I feel at my most comfortable in big cities and after Tokyo, I’d been looking to explore New York for some time. When my friend Liam, who works in travel, suggested a short, cheap trip I couldn’t say no.

It was a very early start as we made our way to get the first Tube train of the morning, sharing the mostly empty carriages with a few shift workers and fellow air travellers. I was really impressed with Heathrow Terminal 5, the newspapers were full of reports of long queues and worries about not being able to cope with the Olympics, but we went through security in no time. I particularly liked the clear-as-day, as-if-talking-to-a-child signage at the security gate which in some situations would be incredibly patronising, but for a stressed, tired passenger is exactly what’s needed. After breakfast and a quick drink at the bar, it was time to board the plane.

The flight was really good, it was the first time I’d traveled with British Airways and I was impressed. Until my wine-soaked flight home from Tokyo, I’d never really drunk on planes, but this time decided to have a couple of vodka and oranges. Exactly like that bit in the first episode of Lost, the stewardess decided to give me an extra mini bottle. I watched the wonderful Muppets film and Chronicle, which helped the flight go quickly.

Arriving at JFK, things didn’t run so smoothly. The wait at passport control was around 45 minutes. I’d been prepared for a bit of an interrogation, so when I did get to the end of the queue and stepped forward, I was a bit surprised for the only question to be “You’re here on holiday, right?” as I had my fingerprints scanned in.

We’d traveled light, so there was no need to pick up any luggage. So, it was straight to the excellent Airtrack train service to Jamaica Centre to get the subway. Queuing up at the station to get a weekly travelcard, I saw my first slice of New York City life, as a probably-homeless guy tried to sell a used ticket to everyone lining up. When the woman in the ticket booth told all of us to ignore him, he was pleading with her not to stop a brotha sticking it to the man. Or somesuch. Not sure I’ve ever felt so painfully English, but I did what we do best – queued up and ignored every happening around me.

We then went down to catch a train on the E line (while noticing a sign for the two other lines at the station – J and Z, hmm…) and traveled through Brooklyn, under the East River and into Manhattan. The New York Subway has always had a bit of a bad reputation, on film and television it’s always looked like a scary place with muggers around every corner and the occasional river of pink slime. While it’s admittedly one of the grottier, dirtier systems I’ve used (yes, even more so than Paris) and the map wasn’t the easiest I’ve used (two different lines using the same colour? express and local trains?), as soon as I was on board I felt perfectly at home. The rules seemed to be the same as London here – don’t make eye contact and you’ll be fine.

Despite getting this far, I hadn’t quite felt like I’d had a sense of place yet. Not until we emerged from the station at 51st Street. Everything was so… well, so tall. My neck strained to see the beautiful, gothic flourishes at the top of the skyscrapers all around us as we walked to the hotel. There were yellow cabs everywhere. Hot dog vendors. Steam rising from manhole covers. Honking horns. The relentless pace of city life. This was unmistakably New York. I’d never been here before, yet everything was instantly familiar. As I’ve gone to various places around the world, I’ve had my preconceptions shattered time and again and been surprised to find reality being a little different to my expectations, but not here. The New York in my head was identical to the New York I was walking around.

The Chrysler Building. Seeing this very view of the Art Deco beauty around the corner from the hotel gave me my first sense of being starstruck by the city.

We checked in to the hotel, which was a pretty swanky one we managed to get a great price because the lobby was being refubrished. The room was great, and it was in a really good, well connected part of the borough. We went out to get some lunch at a Five Guys across the road. I honestly think I might have had the best burger I’ve had in my life there. Which, for someone who has had as many burgers as me, is quite an accolade. It was a really simple place, with a simple menu – burgers and fries and a seemingly endless list of toppings. I prefer my burgers to be as simple as possible, so just asked for onion and ketchup. The delicious taste and my hunger after a long flight combined to make one of the greatest meals of my life. Seriously. That good.

Grand Central Station. Grand’s the right word for it.

It was time to start being a tourist and get a good look at this city. First stop was Grand Central station, very close to the hotel. It’s always been iconic building, seen in countless films from North By Northwest to Madagascar, and it’s grandiose main concourse is an impressive sight. But it was the less familiar parts of the station I was most amazed by, the tunnels leading out of the concourse, like a complex maze of marble-clad caves.

From there, we walked to Times Square, which was where I got the biggest feeling of de ja vu – I really did feel like I’d been there before, everything was so familiar, it was as if I’d stepped into a film set. I took a moment to just take in the neon and LED all around. It might be, like Piccadilly Circus, a place you can simply see and then leave, but it’s hard not to be impressed by the way that absolutely everything – even the signs for the subway and the police station – are drenched in neon. From there, we went to see the famous Radio City Music Hall in the Rockefeller Center, where we were going to get tickets to the Top of the Rock but were told by the person in the ticket office that there was no point going up there as it was so overcast. When the person whose job it is to sell you tickets tells you not to buy one, it’s a pretty good sign that you should wait to go on another day.

We took the subway to Bleecker Street. In that way that people always try to impose the geography of a city they know upon a place they are visiting, we decided that this was sort of the Camden Town of New York – it was the place to be in the 70s, has seen better days, but still pretty cool with lots to offer. We had a look through Bleecker Street Records, a famous record store full of some great old vinyl, before stopping for a drink at a bar called 1849. Sat on stools at the well-stocked bar, we chatted to the barmaid who was something of a character, just as opinionated about which drinks she didn’t like as which ones she did. When I ordered a Brooklyn ale, she correctly predicted that I wouldn’t like it and suggested a much nicer Yeuling for my second drink. One of the highlights of the bar was the Wall of Shame, an entire wall full of fake IDs, the sort of thing that I’d only imagined as existing in 1990s teen movies, not in the real world. Some girls turned up and asked for a cocktail – the barmaid said “I’ve never heard of that before, but I’ll make the best one you’ve ever had”. Not wanting to stay for too long in the same bar, we headed around the corner to another called Off the Wagon. It was studenty, they played good music and there was a bit of a livelier crowd there. I was still getting used to how to tip, basically following Liam’s lead, but ultimately the drinks were so cheap that even when you include the dollar bill you have to leave for each one, it’s not as expensive as London.

The High Line. Such a great idea.

We then went to the High Line, which is a fantastic idea – an old disused elevated railway line which has been converted into a long, thin park. It’s a fascinating walk, the path widening and narrowing along the way, moving left and right past beautiful flowerbeds, wild plants overgrowing remaining railway tracks, artworks and various other things that make it an unpredictable journey. It also gives great views of the city, with one intersection having raked seating overlooking the traffic and pedestrians below, an “urban theater” where you can sit and watch the world go by.

From there, we travelled east to Williamsburg. If Bleecker Street was Camden, then this was most definitely Shoreditch. We took the L train to Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn’s hipster central. We’d done plenty of research on bars in the area, and worked out a few places to go, starting with one called The Leevy. When we walked in and Pulp were playing on the jukebox, we knew it was a good place. Small and cosy, they had an especially cheap offer on a Bud and a shot, bottles of cider, which I was happily surprised to see, and all sorts of other interesting drinks on offer, including tequila and Gatorade, which we decided against trying. Plus, we were presented with a free big bowl of cheesy puffs! From there, we walked down to a bar called Spike Hill, which didn’t have quite as friendly an atmosphere, it was perfectly fine but with all the choices in the area I’d probably not go back. There was something a little cold about it, compared to other places where we were treated like locals. Quite hungry by then, we went to a place that did pizza by the slice. It looked like your standard white-walled, slightly dirty takeaway place, but the pizza totally hit the spot, the enormous slices not remotely fitting on the paper plates they came with. Walking further south, we were somehow still quite hungry and came across a place called Crif Dogs. It was a great little place, with a chalkboard listing the “Cheap Ass Specials” and the guy behind the counter fighting a losing battle against the CD player behind the counter which was constantly skipping. And the hot dog I had was amazing, easily the best I’ve had.

We then walked down to Barcade, a fantastic bar. The ambience and the drinks on offer would make this a great place to go anyway, but the real joy here was the couple of dozen old school arcade machines, each with a little shelf to put your drink on as you played. I fed a few quarters into Gauntlet and Paperboy, great old games which bring back so many childhood memories.

Barcade. This actually happened.

After this, we walked around, not quite able to find the next place on the list, before deciding to head back to the hotel. It was late, much too late to get the Tube home if we were back home, but the real magic of the New York Subway is that it runs all night long. Probably more due to the travelling than the drink, we both fell asleep on the train, fortunately both at separate times, and at least didn’t miss our stop. Phew.

Sketch characters included Dondelion, who paces his zoo cage while having some rather dark mood swings, and Roy Circles, a talking chocolate finger war veteran widower and PE teacher. These were all linked by Fielding in his treehouse base, eating cereal and drawing pictures of Pele holding a cup while kicking a ball (or is it a saucer?). Whether or not the last couple of sentences raised a smile will show how much you’d enjoy this series. Perhaps the best of these characters was a bright yellow New York City cop named Sergeant Raymond Boombox who solves crimes with the help of his talking wounds, while the definite lowlight of the episode was Renny and Gaviskon, two characters who just crash around a kitchen for a bit. There was also a “guest” appearance from the Boosh’s Moon character, which only made me miss the BBC Three series more.

Luxury Comedy seems to highlight what Julian Barrett brought to the Mighty Boosh. His musical talents have been replaced here by those of Serge Pizzorno from Kasabian, but Barrett’s writing appears to be missed. In particular, it feels like the corduroy and jazz-flavoured balance he brought to the Boosh was missing. Without this balance, Fielding’s flights of fancy had nothing to keep them tied down and while this can be fantastic in small doses, half an hour’s worth left me feeling like I’d gorged on too many sweets.

It’s a shame that it wasn’t anywhere near as funny as it was colourful. Giving Fielding free rein to be utterly self-indulgent without any quality control could have been an interesting experiment as a one-off special, but I have doubts about it having much mileage as a series.