In 2011, bringing cucumber mini-sandwiches and softened carrot sticks and dips, I visited a small studio in Belsize Village, north London, where Noel Fielding was in the thick of creating his series Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy.

"It's so dense, like fruitcake," he explained. "There's a scene, looking through binoculars, of a lychee jumping over 10 Weetabix, before going crazy and molesting an olive. The Daredevil Lychee model is beautiful, with little crash-helmet, little cape and sideburns, but took a week to make and is on screen for seven seconds."

Fielding had formed Secret Peter Productions with animator/director Nigel Coan, but noted: "When performing as a character with ice-cream scoops for eyes, it's hard to think about running a company."

This was Fielding at his most food-friendly, conjuring up "Phone Cake, Jelly Fox … and Mash Potato Utopia", putting two eggs into bed together, attempting to play Fish Finger Jenga and incarcerating a hedgehog in a cage of Waffles. He was dressing up as a war-veteran chocolate finger, a space-travelling chef and a member of fictional band Lysergic Casserole who escapes from a guitar case with the aid of a ramp made of Ryvita.

Fielding had recently moved to Highgate, had a new pal and musical collaborator in Sergio Pizzorno of Kasabian (co-writing Mash Potato Life Shapes and Strawberry Sunrise) and was in two minds about offers of a Mighty Boosh US series and tour.

"Weirdly enough, what I really craved after each of those Boosh live shows was milk. That's what I must have lacked from the tour partying – blue top. My bones were aching for it. They were crumbling out of the bottom of my trousers."