‘It's easier to be politically correct when you're not trying to make 2,000 people laugh' | Jimmy Carr on offence in comedy © Matt Holyoak

‘It's easier to be politically correct when you're not trying to make 2,000 people laugh'

Jimmy Carr on offence in comedy

Jimmy Carr says it’s hard to be politically correct if you’re trying to entertain large audiences

Defending his near-the-knuckle jokes, the comic suggested that comedians can only take woke sensibilities into account if they have niche audiences.

‘It's easier to be politically correct when you're not trying to make 2,000 people laugh consistently for two hours,’ he told Jay Rayner on his Out To Lunch podcast.

And he insisted his harsh sense humour was often a catharsis for those who had gone through bleak times – a public service, even.

‘What I do, I'm very conscious that someone in the crowd needs it,’ he said. ‘

‘Some people have been recently bereaved or they've got chronic pain or they got fired, they've got financial worries. People are going through horrible things and they still make it out to that show.

‘They make it out there because they go, "what I need is to somehow release these endorphins. I need to somehow feel, just for a moment, joy. I can't be worried or fearful when I'm laughing because it takes over."’

Rayner said he understood that argument but wondered how Carr considered the sensibilities of his audiences, asking: ‘You can have 3,000 people in a room. You don't know who's there. You don't know if there's been someone who's been raped. Statistically, in a room of 3,000 people, there probably have.’

Carr replied: ‘100 per cent. But you go, how are you going to process that?’

Rayner: ‘Not necessarily by listening to a bloke doing rape jokes.’

Carr: ‘It’s a tough thing because you go, what actually makes you laugh? It's easier to be politically correct when you're not trying to make 2,000 people laugh consistently for two hours...

‘I've done a lot of jokes about pedophilia and I'm sure at every show there's someone that was inappropriately touched as a child... The best reward is a life well lived. And to move on and to laugh about it.’

The comic restated his position that ‘you take offence, you don't give offence’ and that his intention is always to get a laugh rather than be cruel.

Asked if he had ever done a joke and come off stage and thought, ‘I shouldn't have?’ Carr replied: ‘I've tried stuff that hasn't worked... Failed as a joke. So you could say, was that joke too much or not funny enough? It's a mix of the two.’

And he said the right to be offensive was ‘a hill I'd be willing to die on’.

Explaining how he road-tests 1,000 to 2,000 jokes for a tour that might require 300, he said: ‘The audience tell you two things. They tell you whether it's funny or not, it's binary, it either gets a big laugh or it doesn't and they tell you if it's acceptable.

‘We can all say something that's outlandish or cruel on stage and get a big "woo" or a gasp or an intake of breath. But if there isn't a laugh first, it's not anything really.’

Speaking about the difference between live work and TV, he said: ‘It's very different telling a joke live in a theatre than it is on a screen. There's a different level at which you can work on television. Laughter's a very social noise. You don't laugh so much on your own...

‘It's why I think Christmas TV is so beloved. Because I think Christmas TV, I don't think it's necessarily better than what's on the rest of the year, but you're surrounded by your family watching it and therefore, you have a better experience.

And Carr – who gave up a successful career with oil giant Shell to become a comic – said he never had any doubts about his career change.

‘I immediately knew that this was something I could lean into and spend my life doing and not get bored of,’ he explained.

‘I found my, edge is the term I always use. This is the thing that I can do best. Not better than anyone else, but better than anything else I could do.’

In the wide-ranging discussion, the comedian also spoke about suffering panic attacks, dealing with his mother's death, losing his virginity at 26 (because ‘I was enmeshed a little bit too close to my mother’) and how he loves being famous.

‘I can't understand people who moan about it,’ he said. ‘Becuase you don't have to be.

‘It's a lovely thing, it makes the world a very friendly place. I've got a theory that, actually, being famous is the natural state... I suppose being famous is a bit like living in a lovely, friendly village but you've got Alzheimer's because you don't know anyone but they know you.’

• Out To Lunch with Jay Rayner is available here.

» Chortle interview with Jimmy Carr.

Published: 7 Dec 2021

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