CityLife

Interview: Jimmy Carr

"Clean cut? Nooo..."

‘MY movements in Manchester are always the same. I’ll be at the Yang Sing for Chinese food pretty much every lunchtime. Hanging around, that’s me,” says Jimmy Carr of his routine when he’s in the capital of the north. In fact, he loves us so much here, he pops in when he’s not playing the city.

“Even when I gig around the Greater Manchester area, and even much further north, I always stay in Manchester. I feel like it’s my northern base. In the places that I go and have lunch people now know me because I’m up there all the time.”

And Yang Sing has dusted off his favourite perch for his three dates this week rounding off the Manchester Comedy Festival. “My year’s pretty reliable, you know? You can rely on me to be there every year at the festival. I’m back in December as well this year. Just to mop up anyone who didn’t get round to it the first time.”

His overall tour schedule is as strict and regimented as the timing of his Manchester dates each year. Carr makes sure he produces a different show of new gags each year. “I’m coming back, I’m going to be telling jokes. Apart from every single word, it’s exactly the same. It’s a new tour show and that’s the way I like it. I like my little routine.”

Organised

And, as ever, it kicked off at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. “That’s a few dates to start off the tour, really. I see it as all just a warm up for Manchester, of course,” he japes. “I have that start and that’s nerve-racking and by the time it gets to this time of the year it gets bedded in a bit more and you know what you’re doing.

“It’s pretty good at this time of the year, you feel a bit more confident. You feel you can go off script a bit more and mess around. When it’s a brand new show it’s petrifying. It’s like starting all over again every year but then by this time you think, do you know what? I’ve got the hang of this.”

This year, if he wasn’t busy enough, he’s also managed to add a few extra dates to the tour. “It’s a little bit bigger – marginally bigger, I think, for the sake of it. It’s five dates bigger and a couple of thousand more seats. Basically, if you’ve got a concert venue we will come to your town, eventually. I really like the life. I think there might be some traveller blood in me down the line. I like going to a new town, especially when you know a few people and it’s always really friendly – it’s a different experience.”

Though Carr seems to be naturally one of the most organised comedians on the circuit, there is a large element of him making the most of his current popularity. He noted that he was ‘making hay’ when we spoke of the fickleness of telly fame once but three years on, and despite his continuing success, he remains philosophical.

“I’ve still got the same attitude towards it – it feels like it might be a footballer’s career. Four nights at the Manchester Apollo just feels like… wow! It feels like such a privilege to play. It’s a weird thing that you get 2,500 people all with the same sense of humour, all in the same room. I can’t get enough of that.”

Friendly

Certainly over the past few years he’s built up a faithful audience that returns year after year, used to and enjoying his infamous, cheekily wicked sense of humour.

“They’re tough to offend, my people. But I try…” he laughs. “I think I’ve made more of an effort this year than before. You don’t know where the edge is until you push. But I think people are pretty comedy savvy and have the DVD or have seen me live before so they know what to expect.

“I think there are very few people thinking, ‘oh, he seems like a nice young man. Very clean cut, maybe he’ll tell nice jokes’. Noooo…”

The last time we saw Carr he was forming someone else’s audience, causing a ripple of, ‘oh, look who it is’ comments in Justin Moorhouse’s and John Bishop Edinburgh shows this year.

“I do go to a lot of comedy shows. If I had a couple of nights off I’d go to stuff at the Manchester Festival. I just really enjoy it as a night out. It’s nice that people acknowledge it and go, ‘oh, hello’. I love the attention. I’m glad of it. It makes the world very friendly.”

So hopefully he won’t mind being approached now we’ve divulged where he likes to have lunch when he’s in town.

Jimmy Carr is at the Apollo on October 23, 24 and 25 and returns on December 19. The DVD is out on November 2 (2009).