Jimmy carr on sean lock death12/30/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() “I think if you have a friend that’s tetraplegic you have to be quite chatty, because obviously the typing takes him so long,” he says, in a remark that feels like one of his jokes, but isn’t. He may not think his showbiz stories are particularly interesting, but I loved hearing about his friendship with Stephen Hawking, whom he would take out for a curry and a musical. The book covers most of his life, from growing up in Slough and going to university at Cambridge to meeting his partner of 20 years, the TV producer Karoline Copping, and hosting shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats. But he rarely gives much of himself away, so it’s interesting to read such personal material. He seems a little dejected when I tell him I was more interested in the memoir sections of the book. Photograph: James Gourley/ShutterstockĬarr is an engaging presence – friendly, enthusiastic, happy to answer uncomfortable questions, albeit with an unnervingly intense stare at times. And I learned that skill.”Ĭarr with his partner, Karoline Copping in 2018. “I’d never written a joke before I was 25. Rather disarmingly, he stresses repeatedly throughout his book that anyone could have done this, and that he had no supernatural talent for comedy. Within a couple of years, he had been nominated for the Perrier comedy award at Edinburgh. One-liners were his thing, clever wordplay mixed with a desire to test the boundaries of political correctness. ![]() Aged 25, he jacked in his job and – despite having no comedy experience – tried his hand at writing jokes. Maybe it was those books that made Carr a star. ‘I’m not the sort of person that goes on stage, because I’m not from a theatrical background.’ Or: ‘I’m not the sort of person who can be on telly because they must be special magical people.’ You’d never think: ‘Oh, no, I could give that a go.’” “Self-help opened my eyes a little bit to the idea that the rules that affect our lives aren’t written. He read lots when he was in his early 20s, trudging to his marketing job at Shell each day, dissatisfied with his life and longing for some excitement. But I didn’t want to shortchange anybody and in the end it became a labour of love.”Ĭarr, 49, turns out to be a huge fan of self-help books. “I could have phoned in a showbiz biog of 60,000 words, stuck a couple of pictures in, cash the cheque, great. For a man who once had a reputation as the dark prince of comedy, and whose jokes can be edgy, shocking and sometimes plain cruel, it seems very off-brand. At points it resorts to rather woolly cliches: seize the moment, save for the future, pretend to be happy and you may just become happy. Initially I thought he might be spoofing the genre, but no: it’s an utterly sincere guide for people to achieve bigger things in life, complete with notes on healthy eating, travel tips and – somewhat hilariously given the huge scandal around his tax avoidance in 2012 – managing finances. Yet jokes take a bit of a backseat in Carr’s new memoir, Before & Laughter, which he has written as a self-help book. ![]()
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