Jimmy Carr - Being Funny. 2011 DVD review
Published: Tuesday 20th December 2011
How does Jimmy Carr do it? He has produced a stand-up DVD full of fresh new material almost every year since 2004. He regularly appears on TV shows like 8 Out Of 10 Cats, QI and 10 O'Clock Live and seems to be almost permanently on tour.
More interestingly, despite the fact that he is second almost to no one in using taboo subjects as material for his gags, he has somehow thus far somehow largely escaped the tabloid furores and controversies which have threatened to consume the careers of Frankie Boyle and Ricky Gervais. Perhaps it's just because he's posher, sounding a little like Labour politician Peter Mandelson. He also somehow manages to be both polite and obscene at the same time.
Fans of his previous DVDs will know what to expect from this performance, filmed during his last tour at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. Paedophilia, terrorism, Christianity, AIDS, the disabled: all come under Carr's remit. And no, it isn't just shock value. Carr is undeniably very funny indeed.
Some bits work better than others. The use of cartoons to enhance some of the jokes works very well here, as it did on his last DVD. The audience "heckle amnesty" in which Carr opens himself up to abuse works very well too, the comedian never being a man to lose control of a situation. A section where a member of the audience is invited on stage to interview Carr falls largely flat though. Perhaps it worked better on other nights of the tour.
For the encore, Carr pushes the audience to the limit, deliberately seeing how far the audience will let him go in terms of extreme material. In a sense, this is what Carr does almost all the time. And thank God: he does it very well. Long may he continue.
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