Jimmy Carr – Finally Running Short of Jokes?

July 22nd, 2020 / Leave Feedback / nezuppal

For the past decade Jimmy Carr has dominated television comedy. He IS the host. With his annoying laugh, questionable one-liners and several very successful TV shows it is hard to imagine what comedy shows these days would be like without him. But does that make him funny?

The host of ‘8 out of 10 Cats’, ‘8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown’ and the ‘Big Fat Quiz of the Year’, the man is everywhere. You can’t avoid him. Do you want to? I find him very limited, wooden and a one-trick pony. He can stand very straight, in a fine suit with slicked back hair and teeth whiter than heaven’s pearly gates. But where do the laughs come from? He often just encourages other comedians to do their jobs and make people laugh, rarely adding any substance to the conversation.

His stand-up tours are similar. He tells one-liners which don’t link to each other, he’ll then do his laugh, make some more crude jokes and then pick on a few members of the audience. And he does it again and again and again.

But maybe not again? This time he may have gone too far. In his most recent stand-up show one of his jokes not only caused outrage amongst the ‘Karens’ of the world, but fellow comedians and even people who are known for their ability to ‘take a joke’. (‘Take a joke’ being another way of accepting abuse of course.) But this joke was even a bit much for me; a fan of Jerry Sadowitz, Stewart Lee and Frankie Boyle, I often think that comedians such as these get a lot of abuse for making jokes that are perfectly acceptable in my eyes. Perhaps that’s my own ignorance, a weird sense of humour, or the fact that these three comedians in particular are funny.

Jimmy Carr CAN be funny, but it is not the norm. And this joke about dwarves was not only offensive, unnecessary and damaging but it was simply unfunny. I won’t repeat the joke here because of the above reasons, basically, but you’ll be able to read it and see for yourselves what you think. It was not for me.

People know relatively little about Jimmy Carr. A Cambridge graduate who briefly worked for Shell Oil he really should know better. Or perhaps the grandiose education and the decision to leave a highly successful company to become, arguably, an equally successful comedian has gotten to his head. Incredibly intelligent, he worked out how to scam the government and get away with paying 2% tax in 2012 despite an income that went way into the millions.

David Cameron left a G-20 Summit to comment on the issue, saying, “People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes.”

I agree with David Cameron. Feel free to re-read that last sentence if you have to fully take it in. If David Cameron, the man who left his own daughter in a pub during a press campaign, is questioning your morals and decision-making skills then surely that spells the beginning of the end for anyone in any profession. But Jimmy Carr shrugged it off and continued moving from ‘strength’ to ‘strength’.

This may sound like a rant against jokes that are edgy or borderline but it definitely isn’t. Free speech is essential; comedy only works when it pushes boundaries. Remove comedians who do this and we’ll be stuck watching Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow for the rest of our lives and we can kiss laughter a sad goodbye. It’s not just the string of offensive jokes Jimmy Carr tells that annoy me, its the way he tells them. In an unfunny way. Compare him to an equally, perhaps more controversial, stand-up like Ricky Gervais.

Gervais’ delivery, timing and material make Jimmy Carr look like a mannequin. If you add that to Gervais’ writing, his charity work and acting and you will see why I have such little respect for Jimmy Carr.

This joke won’t ruin Jimmy Carr’s career; the anger will fade as it always does. But it might open people’s eyes to the limits of this man’s comedy. To keep this rant/article relatively political I would like to quote Churchill if I may, with a reflection on how this joke may effect Jimmy Carr’s career …

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

I hope so.