Mr. Methane

Paul Oldfield, better known by his stage name Mr Methane, is a British flatulist who started performing in 1991.^[1] He briefly retired in 2006, but restarted in mid-2007. He claims to be the only performing farter in the world.^[2] He worked on the railways as a train driver. He took an early retirement after a train's brakes failed at Sheffield. After this incident, he focused on his flatulence performances.

Mr. Methane
Born	Paul Oldfield
Comedy career
Years active	1991–present
Medium	Farter
Genre	Speciality act
Website	www.mrmethane.com

Background

According to When Will I Be Famous? (2003), a BBC book on British variety acts, Oldfield discovered his ability to fart on a whim at the age of 15 when practising yoga.^[3] The next day, eager to share his newfound ability, he performed twenty rapid-fire farts in under a minute for a group of his friends.^[3]

Oldfield is able to fart the notes of music in time and in tune^[4] and in the late 1980s, after a few years of work in the railway industry as a train driver, Oldfield turned professional, performing as an opening act for the Macclesfield-based bands the Screaming Beavers and the Macc Lads. The latter wrote a song about him on their album The Beer Necessities.

Oldfield subsequently travelled to New York City in the U.S., where he appeared as a guest on The Howard Stern Show as the "British Blaster". While in New York, Mr Methane also performed a series of fart acts on Broadway.

In his autobiography, comic Frank Skinner talks about the time that Phil Spector, while receiving a lifetime music award, went into a rant live on Australian TV about a duet of "Da Doo Ron Ron" that Skinner had sung with Mr Methane on his BBC1 chat show. Spector said that Methane and Skinner had taken his work of art and desecrated it.^[5]

In the 1990s, Mr Methane produced a parody of the Phil Collins song "In the Air Tonight" titled "Curry In the Air Tonight." Tony Smith, Collins' business manager, refused to let Mr Methane release his parody version, stating that, "This is a very serious song and we cannot see any reason for it to be taken so lightly." Letters between the two parties were reproduced on The Smoking Gun website.^[6]

In 2009, Oldfield auditioned for Britain's Got Talent, where he announced his intention to "put the art into fart",^[7] but failed to make it through to the live finals.

DVDs

• Methane, Mr (2000). Mr Methane Lets Rip! ASIN B00004D03A

See also

• Flatulence humor
• Le Pétomane
• Roland the Farter
• Toilet humour

Books

• Featured in Jennings, Charles (1995). "Up North – Travels Beyond The Watford Gap". Abacus. ISBN 978-0349106854. p. 51.
• Mentioned in Frank Skinner's Autobiography (2001). Frank Skinner by Frank Skinner. Century. ISBN 978-0712679275. pp. 311–12.
• Chapter on Mr Methane in Kelner, Martin (2003). When Will I Be Famous. BBC Books. ISBN 978-0563487777
• Featured in Foster, Tim (2007). Superman's Pockets. FiveFootSix. ISBN 978-0955704000
• There is a lengthy chapter on Mr Methane called "The Man With the Singing Sphincter" in Jim Dawson's 2006 book Blame It on the Dog: A Modern History of the flatulence. Ten Speed Press ISBN 978-1580087513
• The British comedian Peter Kay remembered the time he worked with Mr Methane in his book, Saturday Night Peter (2009). Century. ISBN 978-1846053634. Story starts bottom of p. 95.
• The British author Dougie Brimson writes about Mr Methane in the 'Famous flatuists' chapter of his book The Art of Fart: The joy of flatulence.
• Mentioned in the children's book Operation Ouch!