Review: Jimmy Carr: Laughter Therapy – Middlesbrough Town Hall

Jimmy Carr

On an unexpectedly snowy winter’s evening in Middlesbrough the streets outside the Town Hall were deserted as the flakes fell in force, giving little indication of the antics going on inside the venue as 1,100 or so paying punters packed into the hall (which was thankfully well heated) for an evening of stand-up from one of the most recognisable faces in British comedy.

Jimmy Carr is indeed a very hardworking man, packing in nearly 200 tour dates a year, every year, as well as fronting Channel 4’s 8 Out of 10 Cats and soon to broadcast Channel 4’s The 10 O’Clock Alternative Show. And if you don’t know what you’re going to get with a Jimmy Carr live gig by now, where have you been the past few years? Fans of Carr will rejoice as he pushes the limit even further with this new tour, while his detractors will be fuelled with even more venom and outrage at the audacity of the man.

Two solid hours of relentless one-liners, though, can prove an exhausting experience, with Carr’s simple feed-line, punch line device losing its initial shine somewhat by the time we reach the second half. He is aware of this however, and over the years of touring has formed tricks and ways to break up the show so he still reaches his quota of one-liners but the show also has a nice flowing structure with clearly defined sections.

The show differed in some aspects to Jimmy Carr’s previous tours, as with this offering Carr brings an audience participation element getting punters up on stage, tonight providing us with his new double act partner who didn’t understand any of the jokes he was made to tell. Carr looks more at ease and confident when chatting with audience members than in previous years and is happy to now have a bit of banter with the crowd instead of immediately referring to a stock heckle putdown.

And in recent tours, Carr has been adding more and more visual jokes to his show, doing so this year through use of picture gag segments even more crude and possibly offensive than his last tour. This show definitely deserves its 16+ rating as many pictures graphically depict sexual acts and dark subject matters much in the vein of Carr’s humour, but the audience loved them.

Carr saved his worst until last, however, as he made his way back on stage for an encore that consisted of his most offensive and disgusting material in an attempt to see how far he could actually go with his Middlesbrough audience before completely ruining the gig.

All I can say on this night is, after closing the show on catholic priest jokes and gags on special needs, you feel somewhat tainted walking out into the pure, innocent winter snow. But Carr will no doubt sell out a raft of dates for his tour this time next year and I will no doubt be in attendance. The man is consistently brilliant to many and appalling to others year on year, but I can’t deny he gives a flawless and outstanding evening of comedy each and every time.

Jimmy Carr will continue to tour with his ‘Laughter Therapy’ tour throughout the UK until August 2011. Details can be found here.