The one line wonder Jimmy Carr and his night in Prague
Seats at Prague’s Congress Centre filled up as quickly as they had sold to witness Jimmy Carr on the European leg of his Funny Business tour. With the release of the show he filmed in London now on Netflix, people were ready to see the comedian impress them face to face, expectations were high and the atmosphere inside the hall was restless in the build up to his arrival. The stage was set and the crowd were ready for the onslaught of laughs ahead.
As the lights were dimmed in the hall, the screen suspended above the stage lit up with text on it. The text explained that Jimmy Carr wanted to test the level of the audience and so several jokes appeared on the screen, one after the other sending the audience into fits of laughter before the comedian had even entered the stage. This was a good sign for the rest of the evening and ensured that the crowd were in a good mood for the upcoming stage arrival of Jimmy Carr. To thunderous applause and cheering he arrived on stage and from the outset continued to please the crowd just ah his entrance jokes on the screen had done.
Jimmy Carr’s ability to memorise so many one line jokes (around 350 for a show) is a fantastic ability to have, his delivery of these jokes is so well timed that he gets the best reaction possible from the audience. They roared with laughter throughout the entirety of the gig, some to the extent that they were wiping away tears they had laughed so hard. Jimmy Carr’s jokes ranged from play on words style through to really dark humour, all of these jokes were popular among the audience. In comedic fashion he would explain some of the jokes to random members of the audience to provoke further laugher. Carr like to push the boundaries with his material and he even insulted himself several times making reference to the tax problems he has had in the past. There were many attempts to heckle Jimmy Carr from members of the audience, something which Carr quite enjoys as it challenges him to come up with something on the spot in response and he did not disappoint. Several members of the audience had more than one go and were shut down with hilarious effect each time. Carr also enjoyed interacting with the audience picking out individual members to ask questions to in an attempt to make them feel awkward with the person they were sitting next to, this was all in good taste and the crowd played along to add another great dimension to the show. At one point in the show, Carr also took up a seat behind a desk on stage and performed some one-liners with the aid of cartoons on the large screen above the stage, this helped break the show down and allowed the laughter to continue throughout.
Jimmy Carr’s Funny Business show did not disappoint in Prague. Putting on two shows in one night might be too much for some performers out there but not for Carr. His ability to bounce back and forth off the crowd meant people could become more involved in the show than they may have been with other comedians. He seemed to thrive on opportunity to perform two shows which led to a fantastic night of laugh out loud comedy. After the success of this first visit to Prague, many hope Jimmy Carr will return with another show in the not so distant future.
