Jimmy Carr live review by Rob Johnson
Jimmy Carr is a controversial figure in British comedy and is part of a group of comics, including Ricky Gervais, who are regularly pilloried by the left-wing press.As a child of the ’90s, a time when comedy was dominated by the anarchic ’80s comics and the irony-drenched laddism of the ’90s comics, I’m of the belief that nothing should be off-limits when it comes to comedy. If you don’t want to be offended by something, simply don’t watch that thing. At this point, Carr seems like a bit of a throwback, purely a gags man when comics such as Bo Burnham are examining big themes like depression and masculinity. There is room for both, however, and no matter what you think of him, there is no denying that Carr is incredibly funny…
Computer-generated text on a big screen encourages the Doncaster audience to welcome Carr to the stage but not before displaying the legend ‘In a world where you can be anything… be quiet’. This is a running theme of the show. Carr allows heckles, and indeed these moments often form the most accomplished parts of the performance, but he always feels in control of it all.
One perhaps disappointing aspect of the show is that Carr is still raking over the same old coals. Paedophilia, sexual assault, gender, domestic violence… it’s the same stuff that the London comic has been talking about for years now. That being said, the jokes are still great – “My girlfriend sometimes suffers panic attacks… other times I’m quite calm when I attack her’ – the subject matter may be grim, but the joke itself rightly gets a huge reaction.
The inevitable trans section also feels tired in terms of choosing the same targets but a joke as simple and effective as “I don’t want to be disrespectful to Sam Smith but they is a fat fuck” is difficult to resist, even if there is a nagging feeling that a section of the audience doesn’t understand the irony.
Aside from the filth, there are moments of gravity dotted around here and there. Despite all his jokes about violence against women, Carr also delivers an impassioned plea to any women beaters in the room to leave their partners. He also speaks eloquently and with gravitas about male suicide. I’d like to see more of this from Carr as he is clearly an intelligent and measured fella, but it’s difficult to see where this would fit in around jokes around not wanting to receive a knighthood as “…the sheen has been taken off the title of Sir Jimmy somewhat in recent years”.
While this show feels frustratingly safe at times, there can be no denying Carr’s innate abilities as a performer, nor that he clearly still loves what he does – as evidenced by the fact that this is the second of two consecutive shows on the same bitterly cold Doncaster night and yet he still delivers a set almost 20 minutes longer than advertised.
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