Jimmy Carr Biography
James Anthony Patrick Carr (born 15 September 1972) is a British-Irish comedian, presenter, writer, and actor. He is known for his rapid-fire deadpan delivery of one-liners which have been known to offend some people. He began his comedy career in 1997, and he has regularly appeared on television as the host of Channel 4 panel shows such as 8:Out of:10:Cats, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and The Big Fat Quiz of the Year.
Early life and education
James Anthony Patrick Carr was born on 15 September 1972, in Hounslow, London, England, the second of three sons born to Irish immigrant parents Nora Mary (née Lawlor; 19 September 1943 – 7 September 2001) and Patrick James "Jim" Carr (born 1945), an accountant who became the treasurer for computer company Unisys. His parents were married in 1970 and separated in 1994, but they never divorced.
Carr spent most of his early life in the village Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire, where he attended Farnham Common School and Burnham Grammar School. He completed sixth form at the Royal Grammar School in nearby High Wycombe.
In 2001, Carr's mother, Nora Mary, died of pancrea*is, aged 57. Following her death, Carr's relationship with his father became "severely strained". In 2004, his father was arrested and accused of har*ing Carr and his brother Colin, but was cleared and won an apology from the Metropolitan Police. In 2021, Carr said he had not spoken to his father since 2000 and had not seen him in person, with the exception of an autograph signing after a gig in 2015.
Carr's parents remained in contact with their Irish relatives, and the family made frequent trips to Limerick and Kilkee. After earning four A grades at A-Level, Carr read social science and political science at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated with first-cl* honours in 1994. He went on to work in the marketing department at Shell, but took voluntary redundancy in January 2000 as he felt "miserable" there. He performed his first paid stand-up gig later that month, having done his debut pub show unpaid only the previous December. He has claimed that a course in neuro-linguistic programming helped him realise how his mind was working to hold him back from following his dreams of becoming a comedian.
Career
Television
Hosting
Carr has hosted Channel 4 game shows Distraction and Your Face or Mine?. He presented the 100s series of programmes for Channel 4: 100 Worst Pop Records, 100 Worst Britons, 100 Greatest Cartoon Characters, 100 People Who Look Most Like Jimmy Carr (a spoof) and 100 Scary Moments.
Since 2005, Carr has presented the comedy panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats. The show aired on Channel 4 until 2016, when it moved to More4. It later went to E4. Since 2012, Carr has also presented over 150 episodes of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, a combination of his panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats and daytime quiz show Countdown.
In April 2010, Carr hosted the first British version of a comedy roast show, Channel 4's A Comedy Roast. On 6 May 2010, he was a co-host of Channel 4's Alternative Election Night, with David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne and Charlie Brooker. He joined the three presenters again for 10 O'Clock Live, a Channel 4 comedy current-affairs show, which started airing in January 2011.
In 2014 and 2015, Carr guest-presented two episodes of Sunday Night at the Palladium on ITV. In 2018, he presented American comedy panel show The Fix on Netflix. From 2018 to 2020, Carr hosted the Comedy Central series Roast Battle.
Guest appearances
Carr contributed sketches to Channel 4 topical comedy TV programme The 11 O'Clock Show and has appeared on panel shows A League of Their Own and QI. During a guest appearance on the BBC motoring show Top Gear, Carr set a new celebrity test track lap record on the 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car' segment. He was described as "the worst driver we've ever had" and "the luckiest man alive" by Top Gear's test driver the Stig.
Carr has appeared as a contestant on celebrity editions of Deal or No Deal (won £750 for Helen & Douglas House), The Chase (won £1,000 for Variety Club), Benchmark (won £1,000 for Elton John AIDS Foundation), Tipping Point (won £7,000 for Blue Cross) Catchphrase, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, winning £1,000.
Carr was a guest presenter for one edition of Have I Got News for You; in 2007 he joined Ian Hislop's team in the edition of the show chaired by Ann Widdecombe, with whom he "flirted" outrageously. Later in the episode, Widdecombe stated, "I don't think I shall return to this programme."
Radio
In January 2006, Carr made a joke on Radio 4's Loose Ends, the punchline of which implied that Gypsy women smelled. The BBC issued an apology, but Carr refused to apologise and continued to use the joke. He appeared in two episodes of the radio series of Flight of the Conchords in 2005.
Carr has appeared on BBC Radio 4's Museum of Curiosity a total of 7 times, since 2011. He was the Museum Curator (in his 5 appearances in 2012) and a guest on the 2018 Annual Stock Take Christmas special, alongside Lee Mack, Jo Brand and Sally Philips.
Podcasts
Carr's podcast appearances go back to at least 2010 with a one-off podcast called Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle: Meet the Comedians. Carr's podcast appearances ramped up significantly during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with recent appearances during this period including The Betoota Advocate Podcast, You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, The Comedian's Comedian, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, and Dane Baptiste Questions Everything.
Stand-up comedy
Carr performs stand-up tours continuously over most of the course of the year, originally taking only five weeks off between them. During his Terribly Funny Tour (which began pre COVID lockdown and ends April 2024) he wrote his next tour by trying out new material in every gig. As a result of this Jimmy Carr Laughs Funny starts 17 April 2024.
His first 5 minutes of stand up (unpaid) was at an Islington pub, the Tut 'n' Shive, in Dec 1999. From 2000 to 2003 he started appearing regularly, around London, at Up The Creek, The Banana Cabaret and The Bearcat Comedy Club.
His first really successful show was a revue at the Café Royal, as a part of the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe. *led Rubbernecker, it also featured Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Robin Ince.
In 2004, he threatened to sue Jim Davidson for using a joke that Carr considered his own. The matter was dropped when it became apparent that the joke in question was an old one used for decades by many different comedians. He toured the country with his show A Public Display of Affection, starting on 9 April 2005 at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury and ending on 14 January 2006 at the Gielgud Theatre in London's West End. He also appeared at the EICC during the Edinburgh Festival in August 2005 with his Off The Telly show.
In August 2006, he commenced the tour Gag Reflex, for which he won the 2006 British Comedy Award for "Best Live Stand-Up". He released his third DVD, Jimmy Carr: Comedian, in November 2007. In 2003, he was listed in the Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In 2007, a poll on the Channel 4 website for 100 Greatest Stand-Ups, Jimmy Carr was 12th. A national tour commenced in autumn 2007 named Repeat Offender, beginning at the Edinburgh Festival.
On 3 February 2007, Carr's performance in front of 50 people in London was broadcast simultaneously on the virtual platform Second Life.
His Rapier Wit tour opened on 20 August 2009 eight shows at the Edinburgh Festival before touring the UK. He released a DVD en*led Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes on 2 November 2009. Also on 5 and 6 July 2009, Carr was the warm up act for Las Vegas band the Killers at their DVD record gigs (Live from the Royal Albert Hall).
In October 2009, Carr received criticism from Sunday tabloid newspapers for a joke he made about British soldiers who had lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the UK would have a strong team in the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Carr defended his own joke as "totally acceptable" in an interview with The Guardian. He had met with staff and patients at the rehabilitation centre, Headley Court, in March 2009.
Carr's sixth Live DVD, Jimmy Carr: Making People Laugh, was released on 8 November 2010. Carr's 2010–11 tour, en*led Laughter Therapy, started with a run at the Edinburgh Festival before touring the UK.
Carr was criticised in November 2011 for a joke about the Variety Club's Sunshine coaches, which offer holidays for children with Down syndrome. The charity and Down Syndrome Education International condemned the joke. Carr defended himself by saying nothing should be off limits.
A Guardian profile in 2012 said: "In terms of reach and earning power... one of the nation's most popular stand-up comedians... in his ability to pull in crowds which generate millions in tour and DVD sales..." and as "the undisputed king of deadpan one-liners...".
Carr released the Jimmy Carr: Laughing and Joking DVD on 18 November 2013.
In June 2019, Carr was criticised for the content of his touring show Terribly Funny. Among the controversial jokes were jokes about dwarves, fat women and female genital mutilation. Carr was also criticised by charity Little People UK (co-founded by actor Warwick Davis), accusing him of prejudice for an "offensive" abortion joke he made about people with dwarfism.
Edinburgh
The Edinburgh Festival / Fringe is an annual arts festival, in Scotland, that has been a showcase for comedians since at least the 1970s. Carr has often said how important the Fringe is to anyone that wants to get into comedy and that he is “…a performer at night but during the day I’m a punter and have conversations with people about what show they liked and what they didn’t”.
Carr has said that he first went up to Edinburgh around 2000 to “see what it was about”. Although he would eventually go on to return each year, as a paid stand-up comic, he initially had to resort to trying to save money by sleeping in his car (a Rover 75) or on the floor of somewhere that other comedians had rented.
The August 2001 two-week stint, with Rubbernecker, was Carr’s first Fringe appearance, with his name in the official programme and his first mention on the Comedy site, Chortle.
In 2002, although this was Carr’s second entry (in one of the festival’s programmes) this was his first solo show: Bare Faced Ambition. This was the year that he received a nomination for what was then known as the Perrier Award.
The poster and programme billed him as “England’s answer to Emo Philips” and he performed in the Dining Room of the Gilded Balloon from 2nd to 26 August. Records are not kept of Fringe show attendances but the venue’s room sizes indicate that there would have been less than 50 people at each show.
By the time of 2003’s Festival the now 30-year-old Carr had built a larger fan base through touring, several appearances at Montreal’s Just For Laughs and numerous TV appearances (including co-hosting Your Face Or Mine).: This enabled him to move his shows to the larger venue of the Pleasance Courtyard but the Festival’s rules (on TV appearances) meant that he was judged to now be a “star” and therefore couldn’t be nominated for the 2003 Perrier Award.
He performed for 25 nights between 30 July and 25 August 2003 and, on August 21 and 22nd he participated in Comedy Gala 2003 in aid of Waverley Care.
Edinburgh 2004 followed on from another hit TV show (Distraction) and this tour show was called Public Display of Affection. This meant another move up (in venue size) with 6 shows at the EICC (which had a 1,200-seat capacity – at that time).
2005 was Carr’s 5th Fringe and he again arrived with all new material. This show was called Off The Telly and, returning to the EICC, he performed 8 shows.
Material for the new tour, named Gag Reflex, had been tried out at a WIP (Work in progress) gig at the Hen and Chickens on August 5, 2006. Trial of the new material continued in Edinburgh across 6 nights, from August 17, at the EICC.
Carr only managed to fit in a brief appearance at the 2007 Fringe on August 21. Held at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre it was a regular Fringe fund raiser, headed by Alan Carr, for Waverley Care. He was still writing material for his planned Repeat Offender tour, as evidenced by him using a clipboard on stage.
Previously The Guardian had been reasonably positive, in relation to reviews of comedians headlining at the Fringe, but 2007 articles saw them declare that that “household names were drowning out more pioneering art”.
The 2008 Edinburgh programme doesn’t list dates or a venue for Carr’s shows this year, possibly because his attendance was confirmed after printing. His presence (and the unveiling of his Joke Technician tour) was, however, mentioned in the Independent and also Chortle.
Edinburgh 2009 sees Carr return for what is billed as his “8th solo show” – thereby confirming his 7th attendance in 2008. He returns to the EICC with his new show, Rapier Wit, for 8 nights spanning 20th to 30 August.
He also attended the Edinburgh International Television Festival to be a Judge on a Britain’s Got Talent spoof (called TV’s Got Talent) alongside Amanda Holden and Louis Walsh.
Edinburgh 2010 sees Carr debut his new show, Laughter Therapy, a few days after the end of his Rapier Wit tour. He was back, once again, at the EICC for 8 nights.
Although he performed a number of gigs in Scotland, during 2011, Carr didn’t make it to that year’s Festival. At Edinburgh 2012 he was back to perform his new show, Gagging Order, with 6 nights at the EICC.
2014 saw Carr return for his 11th solo Edinburgh show, called Funny Business. Based once again at the EICC he played 4 nights in what would appear to be his last Fringe appearance (with a comedy show).
In August 2017 Carr returned for a different kind of Edinburgh Festival – the Edinburgh International Television Festival. He interviewed Comedy Central President, Kent Alterman, in an on-stage Q&A session in front of industry staff.
America
In the final months of his Terribly Funny 2.0 tour Carr made several trips to the USA. Each trip consisted of around a week, criss-crossing the country. 2023 saw these mini tours in October, November and December and 2024 was March and April (this last trip ended up consisting of new material, under the tour name Laughs Funny).
American TV
Early support was shown by Conan O'Brien and Carr has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien twice in 2002, twice in 2006 and then again in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (that last appearance being on the renamed The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien). Appearances on the The Tonight Show with Jay Leno were 2003 and 2005, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was 2016, 2018 and 2019 and The Late Late Show with James Corden 2016.
His first venture into making TV shows, in the US, was The Strategic Humour Initiative (hosted by Sir David Frost) back in 2003. It was a joint UK / USA / Canada production and Carr was chosen to be the UK comedian. Only 1 episode was made.
2005 saw Carr hosting 12 episodes of the American version of the shock gameshow, Distraction (which he had hosted in the UK). A second US series (14 episodes) was commissioned in 2006.
Comedy Central (US) made two episodes of Comedy Central Presents: Jimmy Carr (2005 and 2009).
Netflix produced 10 episodes of The Fix in 2018, hosted by Carr. It was an attempt to export the UK panel show format to America and, although still available on Netflix, no further episodes have been made.
Carr was the first British comedian to get a Netflix stand up special, with his show Funny Business (March 2016).
American stand-up
Because of the frequency of his trips and his workaholic nature Carr collaborates with American comedians in various ways. Neal Brennan credits him with the idea for his Blocks podcast and Jeffery Ross frequently invites him to be part of his Roast events (the most famous of which is probably The Roast of Rob Lowe). Across two nights of the 2022 Netflix is a Joke Festival Carr was a support act for Dave Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl (April 30 and May 3, the show where Chappelle was attacked on stage).
During this Festival Carr slotted in one of his own tour gigs, at the Palace Theatre, and also performed at the Hollywood Palladium as a part of the line up for Bill Burr Presents Friends Who Kill, which was filmed for another Netflix Special.
As a member of the Netflix comedy roster, he was also invited to a celebratory brunch at the home of Netflix co-CEO, Ted Sanderos.
The Comedy Store opened in Los Angeles in 1972 and is a mecca for successive generations of stand-up comedians. Carr has been performing there for many years and is one of a small number of British comedians that are listed as alumni and, in 2018, was given the honour of having his name painted on one of the club's walls.
Since 2015 Carr has made several appearances on the US live comedy show Kill Tony.
American charities
Carr is a supporter of the Bob Woodruff Foundation (a non-profit that supports post-9/11 impacted service members, veterans, and their families). On 5 November 2018 he was on the bill of the Stand Up for Heroes event at Madison Square Gardens.
Carr then hosted the 17th Stand Up for Heroes event (6 Nov 2023) in New York and is scheduled to appear at the 2024 event, on 6 November.
Carr was one of the British comics supporting Amnesty International at the 2012 Secret Policeman's Ball, in New York.
Books
In 2006 the book The Naked *e: Uncovering the Hidden World of Jokes, on the history and theory of joke-telling, by Carr and Lucy Greeves, was published by Penguin.
Before & Laughter, a memoir and self-help book, was published by Quercus in December 2021.
Controversies
2012 tax avoidance
In June 2012, Carr's involvement in an alleged K2 tax avoidance scheme came to light after an investigation by The Times. The scheme is understood to involve UK earners "quitting" their job and signing new employment contracts with offs* shell companies based in the low-tax jurisdiction of Jersey. Prime Minister David Cameron said: "People work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax-avoiding schemes." Carr subsequently pulled out of the scheme, apologising for "a terrible error of judgement".
Viewing figures of the episode of his topical show 8 out of 10 Cats, recorded on the day of his apology and broadcast the following day, almost doubled compared with the previous week. Earlier in 2012, during the second series of Channel 4's satirical news programme 10 O'Clock Live, Carr had lampooned people who avoid paying their taxes. A sketch from the show, in which he poked fun at the 1% tax rate of Barclays Bank and described tax lawyers as being "aggressive" and "amoral", was regarded as having "come back to haunt him".
In February 2018, Carr appeared on Room 101, where he talked about the controversy. Though he admitted that what he did was wrong, he said there was some level of hypocrisy in the comments that Cameron had made about him in 2012, stating that members of Cameron's family and Queen Elizabeth II had subsequently been mentioned in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers tax evasion scandals. Carr said that the law should become clearer by eliminating any loopholes, instead of leaving it up to individuals to decide what is morally right. Carr continues to reference the scandal in his performances and public appearances.
2011 amputee joke
At the Manchester Apollo in 2011, Carr suggested war injuries had a positive side. "You can say what you like about these servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, "but we're going to have a * good Paralympics team in 2012."The Prime Minister's office condemned the joke. Newspapers and radio stations phoned the mothers of soldiers maimed in battle, recited the joke, then reported their outraged reactions. Carr contended that it was a good joke.
2021 Holocaust joke
In a stand-up comedy performance released as a Christmas 2021 Netflix special *led His Dark Material, Carr joked:
“When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the National Socialist German Workers' Party war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the National Socialist German Workers' Partys. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.”
During the show, Carr defended his joke saying that it had the educational value of raising awareness about groups who suffered genocide in the Holocaust. The show had been released in December 2021 without comment on the joke but received widespread attention the following February after a clip was posted and shared online. He was condemned by the Auschwitz Memorial, Hope not Hate and The Traveller Movement, who called anti-Romani prejudice the "last acceptable form of racism" in the UK. He also faced criticism from British politicians, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust said they were "absolutely appalled" and "horrified", and described Carr's joke as "abhorrent". Despite the criticism, Carr stood by the joke.
Personal life
In the late 1990s, when he was 26 years old, Carr had what he calls "an early midlife crisis" during which he lost his Catholic faith. He has since made comments critical of organised religion. In 2015, he said: "As for being a Christian, yes, it seems ridiculous now, but I genuinely believed there was a big man in the sky who could grant wishes. Writers like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins helped change my view, but I don't go on stage banging on about being an atheist... I'm just a guy who tells jokes." He has stated that he underwent a lot of psychotherapy (specifically neuro-linguistic programming) at the time of his crisis in order to help him cope with his loss of faith, and that he is qualified as a therapist.
Carr has dual British and Irish citizenship, travels on an Irish p*port, has spoken of his pride in having Irish ancestry, and was presented in 2013 with a certificate of Irish heritage in his parents' home city of Limerick by the city's mayor.
Carr lives in North London with his Canadian girlfriend Karoline Copping, a commissioning editor for Channel 5, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2001. Their son was born in 2019.
Awards
- Time Out Award: Best Stand Up (2002)
- Perrier Award Nomination (2002)
- Royal Television Society Award: Best On-Screen Newcomer (2003)
- LAFTA Award: Best Stand Up (2004)
- Rose D'Or Nomination: Best Presenter, Distraction (2004)
- LAFTA Award: Funniest Man (2005)
- British Comedy Award: Best Live Stand Up (2006)
- LAFTA Award: Funniest Man (2007)
- LAFTA Award: Best Stand Up (2008)
- LAFTA Award: Loaded Legend (2011)
Works
Tours
Comedy specials
Filmography
FilmTelevisionGuest appearances- QI (2003–2022)
- A League of Their Own (2010–2017)
- Deal or No Deal (2012)
- Was it Something I Said? (2013)
- Through the Keyhole (2014, 2015, 2017)
- Top Gear (2004, 2006, 2013)
- Celebrity Juice (2014–2019)
- Alan Davies: As Yet Un*led (2015, 2017)
- Celebrity Squares (2015)
- Celebrity Benchmark (2015)
- Crackanory (2015)
- Virtually Famous (2016, 2017)
- The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2016)
- @midnight (2016)
- Chelsea (2016)
- The Chase: Celebrity Special (2012, 2019)
- Tipping Point: Lucky Stars (2016)
- The Grand Tour (2016)
- Play to the Whistle (2017)
- Catchphrase: Celebrity Special (2018)
- Room 101 (2018)
- This Is My House (2021)
- Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Celebrity Special (2021)
Books
- 2004, Distraction Quiz Book (foreword)
- 2006, with Lucy Greeves, The Naked *e: Uncovering the Hidden World of Jokes (UK), or Only Joking: What's So Funny About Making People Laugh (USA)
- 2020, Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You, edited by Adam Kay (Carr contributed a story)
- 2021, Before & Laughter: A Life-Changing Book
Discography
- = (Ed Sheeran, 2021) – backing vocals on "Visiting Hours"
References
External links
Jimmy Carr at Wikipedia's sister projects- Media from Commons
- Quotations from Wikiquote
- Official website
- Jimmy Carr at IMDb
- Jimmy Carr at British Comedy Guide
- BBC Radio 4 – Jimmy Carr, Desert Island Discs, March 2017
