Category: Comedy

Jimmy Carr – Stand-Up DVD & Netflix Reviews

Jimmy Carr is a stand-up comedian who I’ve been a fan of for several years, and at the time of writing he’s the only comic I’ve got around to seeing live twice, albeit with far too long a gap between the two shows. The first time was at The Princess Theatre, Torquay in July 2012, where I actually got to meet him, and then much more recently I saw him at the New Theatre, Oxford in November 2022. I’ll make sure it’s not another 10 years before I see him again!

His humour is often very rude of course, including subjects that are taboo or controversial, so he’s not to everyone’s taste, and that’s perfectly fine and understandable. Nobody has to watch him, and if you’re not a fan of his then don’t read this post.

But I personally feel comfortable with his style of humour. He’s said himself that he’s an equal opportunities offender, in that anybody and everybody is a target for his humour, and thus nobody is singled out. And, like all the other people who choose to attend his gigs or buy his DVDs, I know exactly what I’m getting into. I know that he’s just telling jokes and not expressing his actual opinions, and his jokes don’t reflect my personal views either. I also know that he’s a nice guy from meeting him in person, and I know that he’s clever and insightful about jokes and comedy from both his stage act and his interviews.

So, following the pattern I’ve adopted with other comics whose shows I’ve attended in recent months, I thought I would rewatch and review all of his stand-up shows that he’s released on DVD (a few of which are also on his Youtube channel alongside lots of clips), and more recent gigs that were published on Netflix. Each show includes lots of great jokes and banter with the audience, and sometimes other elements for a little bit of variety. And his DVDs contain a lot of extra features, he’s been quite generous with those too, even going to the effort of narrating the menus and adding comedy subtitles on the earlier releases.

So here’s my little run through of his DVDs and online shows, none of which are sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy!

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Dara Ó Briain – Stand-Up & Mock The Week DVD Reviews

As I recently got to see the fantastic Irish comic Dara Ó Briain live for the first time in October, it’s only natural that I should go through his DVDs that I have in my collection, just like I’ve done for a few other comedians this year. It’s been a lot of fun to rewatch them yet again.

Dara’s shows are always happy and jolly, with great energy and a convivial atmosphere. Even if he’s having a rant about something or having a dig at someone in the audience, it’s always with a light-hearted air. Indeed, chatting to people in the front row and elsewhere in the room is a regular part of his act that he very much enjoys doing. He has an excellent rapport with people, and is very good at instantly spinning anything they say into a fun flight of fancy and building on it, and he sometimes talks about particularly memorable people from other gigs too. Then, at the end of each show, he always makes a point of crediting each of the people he’s spoken to in a suitably amusing manner, and inviting applause for them, in order to acknowledge the contributions they made.

He also likes to post cryptic “You had to be there” references on Twitter after each show, which only those who attended will understand, while the rest of us can only guess what must have been going on. So he makes every show feel like a unique, engaging, intimate experience for each audience, even in huge venues.

All of his DVDs come with subtitles and extra features, and there are a couple of extras in particular that appear multiple times:

  • There are live shows from Vicar Street in Dublin on 3 of his DVDs, which are edited down to remove any material that’s already in the main feature. They’re included because Dara always does some exclusive material for his Irish audiences, which include occasional words and references that non-Irish people won’t understand, but you still get the general gist of what’s going on. And there’s a lot of great chat between Dara and several of the audience members. So those bonus shows are well worth watching as well.
  • Every DVD has an In-Vision Commentary & Drinking Game, where Dara invites one or two comedian friends to watch the show with him, and they take drinks every time Dara says or does certain things. They’re not as engaging or exciting as the main feature, and on the last couple of DVDs the drinking game element has pretty much been dropped so it’s really just a chat. But they’re all interesting features to check out, as they’re not very long, it’s fun to see the banter between Dara and his mates, and he gives some nice insights into some of his routines.

So in this post I’m going to briefly review each of his DVDs, all of which are a lot of fun, along with a mention of a show I once saw online. Plus as a bonus I’ve tacked on reviews of my Mock The Week DVDs as well, in tribute to that show coming to an end. None of this stuff is sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy reading about it!

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Oxford – Art, Academia, Jools & Jimmy

Last weekend I had a nice little getaway in the beautiful historic city of Oxford, which I’ve never visited before. I spent the daylight hours visiting a museum and going on a walking tour, while in the evenings I attended a concert and a stand-up comedy gig, so I made good use of my time there. None of it is sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy this review of what I got up to!

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October 2022 Favourites

Hello again, I hope you’re all doing well despite everything going on in the world at the moment. Here in the UK, Liz Truss having to resign after a disastrous 45 days as our shortest-serving Prime Minister was certainly quite astonishing to witness, and now it remains to be seen if new PM Rishi Sunak can start to get things back on track and last at least as long as she did!

Still, despite all that chaos, I’m doing well, I’m happy to say. My redundancy certainly hasn’t left me twiddling my thumbs, as I’ve been very busy indeed this month. The fact that I’ve been invited to contribute to various disability and accessibility projects, some of which I’ve been paid for, has shown that I’m still very much in demand for my skills and opinions, and I’ve continued to socialise with friends as well of course. So I still have a sense of purpose and don’t feel at all lonely, bored or cast aside in any way despite my job loss, and I still have financial stability for the time being.

So I’m enjoying the career break, and there’s plenty to cover this month, including the aforementioned disability projects, virtual reality games, stand-up comedy shows, a museum visit, a seaside trip, an overseas holiday, TV shows and music releases. So I hope you enjoy this bumper roundup post and video!

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September 2022 Favourites

Well, what a month this has been! When I published my August Favourites at the start of September, I had just left my first job due to my redundancy, and Liz Truss had just become Prime Minister. But then 2 days after I’d made that post, the ultimate career change took place at the top of our Royal Family, and normal life in the UK was disrupted for the best part of a fortnight as a result. I’ve written a separate post saying farewell to Her Majesty The Queen and reviewing the coverage, as it’s not really suitable for a Favourites post and there was quite a lot to talk about.

Apart from that though, and despite my redundancy, I’ve still been pretty busy this month. I’ve attended a Derren Brown show and a couple of tribute concerts, listened to an audiobook I got for my birthday, and enjoyed new episodes of my favourite comedies on TV once the schedules had returned to normal. So there are still plenty of nicer things to mention in this post and the short video I’ve made to go with it, none of which is sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy my latest roundup!

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Farewell Queen Elizabeth II

It’s the end of an era, no doubt about that. As if leaving my first job and Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister haven’t been big enough changes to kick off the month, the ultimate career change has just taken place over the past couple of weeks. It’s been beautiful, celebratory and moving, and has brought an enormous number of people together in grief, reflection and gratitude. So I felt it only right to pay my respects in this blog as well.

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Adam Hills – Stand-Up Comedy Reviews

As The Last Leg has just been celebrating its 10th anniversary, and I’ve recently written about their 2012 Christmas special and co-host Josh Widdicombe’s stand-up comedy shows, I’ve naturally rewatched some of the great stand-up shows by Australian presenter Adam Hills as well. From the many shows he’s done over the years, there are a few DVD releases that I own, along with a TV programme I recorded and an earlier gig I’ve watched on Youtube. There are lots of other clips of him online as well of course, a few of which I’ve added here where relevant, but my reviews are of the complete shows I’ve watched.

As on The Last Leg, Adam’s friendly and caring persona comes across well in these shows, as he uses his interesting anecdotes and very funny jokes to impart a positive and supportive message about living your life to the full, without being preachy or patronising. Plus he can get away with being a bit ruder than on TV. There are some jokes or stories that are repeated across different shows, including his experience of going through security at airports in America & Beijing with his artificial leg, which comes up in nearly all of them it seems, but the vast majority of the material is new each time. And he really enjoys interacting with the audience, so he sometimes gets completely derailed when he chats and messes around with people before he gets into his scripted routine. It keeps things interesting for him, as well as making it a unique show for the audience each time.

The other great thing about Adam’s shows is that he always has a sign language interpreter on stage with him, either Leanne Beer when he’s in Australia, or Catherine King when performing in the UK. And the 3 DVDs I own all have an option for the interpreter to be displayed on screen for the entire show. It’s fantastic that people with hearing difficulties get to feel fully included in this way, and it also adds extra value for other audience members, who get to enjoy some of the jokes twice when they learn the signs for the naughtier aspects. Indeed, Adam often has a laugh by getting the interpreter to sign rude things or represent different accents. Leanne and Catherine are both very good sports, and Adam kindly refers to his interpreter as the star of the show at the end. The DVDs all have options for subtitles as well.

So with all that said, let’s run through each of the shows…

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August 2022 Favourites

Hello again. I hope you’re doing well, in what I know are worrying and stressful times for many, given all the economic, financial, environmental and political turmoil at the moment.

It’s certainly not the ideal time for me to be made redundant, that’s for sure – not that there is a ever a good time of course. Fortunately my mother and I are doing fine though, despite that. We’re lucky to be in a comfortable financial position where we can ride this out for a while, and I can have a nice break to reset while I consider what to do next. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy as well. But hopefully it won’t be too long before I find a new career. Given all the financial and economic uncertainty, however, we have decided not to move house for the time being – but then that was never essential anyway, it was just something we were considering. It will happen eventually, at a later date, and in the meantime we’ve got some small improvements we can make to our current place.

Anyway, I’ve now finished my first ever job, and I’ve made a post all about my last month at work and the wonderful messages I’ve received, including a lovely gift I was sent by one department, so do check that out for more details. I’m flattered and humbled by the amount of kindness everyone has shown, and I will miss my colleagues very much.

Beyond that, because work was my main focus, I haven’t done a huge amount this month, and there were even a couple of weekends where I couldn’t go out at all. But there are still a few happier things to mention, as I celebrated my birthday, received an award and briefly visited a couple of museums. Plus I really enjoyed watching the Commonwealth Games on TV, so I’ve written quite a bit about those in this post, and I revisited the 2012 Olympics & Paralympics on Blu-ray, which I’ve already written about elsewhere. So, while August wasn’t very eventful overall, I hope you still find some items of interest in this latest roundup!

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London 2012 Revisited – Sporting Celebrations

Recently I’ve been looking back in detail at the 2012 Olympics & Paralympics, with the aid of the Blu-ray sets released by the BBC and Channel 4. For the Olympics I wrote about the Opening & Closing ceremonies and highlights from Days 1-8 & 9-16, and then I made a separate post about my Paralympics highlights.

Back in 2012, however, I also had a combined hard drive and DVD recorder connected to my TV, which meant I was able to record programmes, do some very basic editing and copy them on to discs. So I ended up recording a selection of shows relating to the Olympics & Paralympics, and I stored them on several DVDs, which I still have in my collection. And I’ve therefore been rewatching them as part of my nostalgia trip. They naturally aren’t as high quality as professional DVDs or Blu-rays, but they’re still good enough.

I’ve already discussed a few recordings relating to the Olympics in previous posts, as noted in the list of contents below. But here in this final post, to conclude my trip down memory lane, I’m going to run through the other stuff I captured, including our big victory parade, the Sports Personality Of The Year, documentaries, and appearances by some of the athletes on chat shows and game shows. I’ve also created a playlist with clips from some of these programmes, and some other relevant videos. So I hope you enjoy looking through it all!

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London 2012 Revisited – Paralympics Highlights

Soon after the sensational Olympics in 2012, which I’ve recently posted about extensively to mark the 10th anniversary, we then got to enjoy another couple of weeks of multi-sporting excellence courtesy of the Paralympics. Having disabled people take centre stage in these Games, for the whole world to see their stunning achievements, is always incredibly important and thrilling to watch. The Opening Ceremony took place exactly 10 years ago today as I’m publishing this, on 29 August 2012.

The Paralympics cannot change all of society’s attitudes and behaviours overnight of course, nor does it claim to do so. It clearly doesn’t represent every disabled person or impairment, nor the myriad of different ways we each go about our lives. These are exceptional athletes who have pushed themselves to their absolute limits, so their lives are very different to the rest of us in many ways. But even so, they are still people with conditions and experiences that many of us can relate to, and their exposure on a global stage undeniably helps to raise awareness, challenge misconceptions, and encourage greater acceptance and inclusion, in an engaging and entertaining way. It isn’t a quick fix for equality and inclusivity, and it’s totally understandable that some disabled people take issue with the way it’s promoted – there is a lot of work to be done beyond the Paralympic bubble for sure. But it is a very prominent springboard in the right direction, and I for one love watching it.

The London 2012 Paralympics were the biggest Games to date, and they certainly made their mark, by successfully extending and surfing on the tidal wave of intense enthusiasm that had been generated by the Olympics. They sold record numbers of tickets and attracted a huge TV audience, as people flocked to watch and support the biggest number of disabled competitors to date, many of whom were or became lasting household names.

So in this post I’m going to look back at some of my favourite moments of the 2012 Paralympics, with the aid of Channel 4’s Blu-ray set of the Games. There isn’t as much to talk about as there was for the Olympics, so I can go through it in just one post this time, but there are still lots of great highlights worth mentioning along the way. And I’ve also created a Paralympics playlist on Youtube with plenty of clips too. So I hope you enjoy!

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