Jimmy Carr. Photo: Featureflash Photo Agency/Shutterstock.comI have been a Jimmy Carr believer for years now and, truth be told, never thought I’d get to see him perform in the flesh in my own country. Which is why last Friday saw me drive up to the Eden Arena sporting an unwavering grin onmy face.
Sure, nowadays it is relatively easy to book tickets for one’s favourite musician/ comedian/ whatever in another country (thank you, low-cost flights), but catching a world-class performance on home soil somehow lends the event an added oomph.
Which is why I was less-than-amused at the hullabaloo that had erupted over the original price of tickets and that potentially was going to ruin everyone else’s chance to watch Carr do his thing without the hassle of travelling elsewhere.
“It’s cheaper to watch him in London,” they said. Fools, I say. And no, it’s not because I’m rolling in money and couldn’t give less of a damn about those who aren’t. It’s just that I find it utterly ridiculous for people to complain about ticket prices, only to follow it up with the boast that they will be watching the show in London. What you are essentially telling me is not that you cannot afford the ticket, it’s that you are happy to add miscellaneous expenses (flights, hotel, holiday expenses and time off work) to your Jimmy Carr experience, as long as you pay €10 less for your ticket. Because, you know, logic.
Had the subject of complaints been some essential item, like education, food or healthcare, I’d have been there, on the frontline, with the most vocal of detractors. But I doubt that stand-up comedy, no matter how great, qualifies as an essential basic. The way I see it, if I can’t afford to drink champagne at a five-star hotel every weekend, I don’t. I don’t take to Facebook like a spoilt brat about it. But hey, we are only fans of the free market as long as it suits us.
But enough about that and back to my anticipatory grin, which threatened to fade fast as soon as I approached the Eden Arena and saw the mother of all queues. I joined the tail-end with some misgivings. We all know what a Maltese queue looks like: it doesn’t, because it isn’t there. Happily, turns out the organisation was pretty spot-on and the long tail was processed in record time.
Initially, I was not keen on the new venue chosen. The show was originally meant to take place at Cinema 16, which I found really worked in previous shows. I was sceptical about the layout of this new venue, which had been picked in order to increase audience intake, which in turn enabled prices to be lowered. Yet another reason I had a beef to pick with those who had whined about the original ticket price.
However, my misgivings were unfounded. The way seating was set up maximised on efficiency and gave all seats a decent view. A big screen was also set up, just in case.
The gig kicked off with a short warm-up and a list of dos and don’ts. Top of the list: do heckle, but try to be clever about it – more about that later. And suddenly it was time for Carr himself to breeze on stage with that characteristic smile, all guns a-blazing, launching straight into local flavour with quips and one-liners about offshore accounts and tax havens. “You’re one to talk!”, an indignant voice piped up from the back, evidently referring to the comedian’s own less-than-pristine tax payment record. And there was that trademark laugh, which Carr himself describes as a honking goose, getting a good airing for the first time that evening.
It made me sad to remember that, if this were a Maltese comedian, he could very well find the police on his doorstep, thanks to our lawmakers not yet having decriminalised religious vilification
“Yeah, I’m the world’s worst tax avoider,” he quipped back, before continuing to fire more jokes with a Maltese flavour. Getting some local colour in is a common technique to break the ice with the audience, but I really liked Carr’s approach, which turned the typical “let’s mispronounce some words in the local language” into something funnier.
“So Maltese... Let’s see. Football, computer....am I saying it right?”
It wasn’t the time to get all patriotic, trust me. The local angle did fall flat at a point later on in the evening, when Carr attempted to make the obvious jokes based on Gżira’s most renowned service industry. Unfortunately, Gżira is hardly the easiest word to pronounce for a Brit, so no-one quite got it and the titters were very sporadic. That’s one for us, Carr.
There weren’t many of these occasions, though. Carr’s brand of humour is pretty universal and he certainly doesn’t fall into the trap of having punchlines that are too centred around a particular culture, country, sport or era. Carr’s topics are those that we can all relate to – mostly offensive, of course, but this is what makes it funny – sex, family, race and Adrian’s mother.
The latter will require some explaining. A salute goes out to said Adrian, a member of the audience brave enough to heckle, but without the sophistication to make it clever. “You’re boring,” he shouted, giving Carr a beautiful excuse to turn the weak heckle into one of the show’s main punchlines, more often than not roping in Adrian’s unsuspecting mother, and proving that ‘yo mama’ jokes, when done well, never get old.
Incidentally, I have to say that the heckling was pitiful. The idea of a good heckle is to attempt to put one over the comedian on stage, coming up with a witty quip to try make him lose his cool. This is something that almost never happens, of course but, when done cleverly it adds a lot to the show. Shouting out variations of “you’re boring” or “you suck” doesn’t quite qualify. It may elicit a titter once, but on the third, fourth or fifth attempt it’s just pitiful, especially if you can’t even keep a straight face while saying it.
Cut a long story short, Carr delivered big time and there were very few jokes that didn’t work with this audience. I did find myself wondering, through the proceedings, what makes it okay for us to laugh at certain topics that we would never dream of joking about outside the context of a stand-up comedy show. I mean, Carr does eliminate pretty much every taboo and everyone in the audience laughed along happily to jokes about race, sexual orientation, religion, rape, incest, disabilities, nationality ... You name it, Carr will insult it – and the beauty of it is that no-one got offended.
Some jokes did get less laughter than others, most notably the ones relating to religion and abortion, so maybe the Maltese collective sense of humour still requires some evolving.
It made me sad, however, to remember that if this were a Maltese comedian he could very well find the police on his doorstep, thanks to our lawmakers dragging their feet joining the rest of the civilised world and not yet having decriminalised religious vilification. Interestingly, when Carr asked how many Christians were in the house, not one person spoke up. Shades of Judas and hypocrisy, anyone? Eventually, one person was coaxed into collaborating.
After the show, while discussing taboo topics and comedy, we arrived to the conclusion that comedian Anthony Jeselnik explained it best. Most people do not find it offensive because it is all done without an iota of hatred, but purely in pragmatic good-humour that the comedian will also turn against himself on more than one occasion.
The show lasted two hours, with one 20-minute interval, and I can honestly say that at no point was I bored. Bring it on: anyone who helps us take ourselves a bit less seriously and who manages to topple all of our sacred cows in one evening is welcomed with open arms.