Jimmy Carr

Jimmy Carr0:00

This is the BBC.

Presenter0:26

My castaway this week is the comedian Jimmy Carr. His default approach to life is swimming against the tide. In an era of relentlessly observational comedy, he tells tightly crafted jokes with proper punchlines. At a time when hoodies and trainers are standard fashion issue, he favours bespoke Savile Row tailoring. And as the modern media increasingly preoccupies itself tiptoeing around the sensibilities of society, he positively revels in the inappropriate, with his gigs punctuated not just by audience laughter, but sharp intakes of breath too. His work ethic is extraordinary, around two hundred and fifty live gigs a year plus a lot of T V.

Presenter1:09

Comedy came into his life as Catholicism exited. The son of Irish immigrants, he was brought up in Berkshire, going on to study at Cambridge. But by his mid-twenties, he'd experienced something of an early midlife crisis, throwing in his marketing job at Shell and giving up on religion, too. He is clearly a thinker, but says, There is no lesson to be learned from my shows, no takeaway aha moment. I'm trying to release endorphins by making people laugh. I'm not sending any message, and I'm not running for office. So welcome, Jimmy Carr. You've been doing stand-up now for a roundabout. What's wrong? You look good. That's a great.

Jimmy Carr1:43

That's a great introduction. I don't feel like I need to be here, but just play the songs and I'll go. That's everything, right?

Presenter1:48

You've been doing stand up for fifteen years now. Your tours have names like Barefaced Ambition, Charm Offensive, Gag Reflex, Repeat Offender, and yet you've got to call him something. You say there's no message. To me the message seems to be free speech.

Jimmy Carr1:50

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr1:58

You got a cool

Presenter2:03

Which is important.

Jimmy Carr2:03

I don't think it is. I mean, I've got quite a dark sense of humour. Like, they're edgier jokes, or they'd be seen as, you know, taboo to some. You find your audience, so they come to see the show. I'm not shouting these jokes through people's letterboxes. They've come to see the show. They're literally buying into it. You know, when they're taken out of context and reprinted in a paper, then there's a big media storm, and you kind of go, oh, right. But everyone in that room laughed because it was.

Presenter2:13

See the sh

Presenter2:21

Printed in the paper.

Presenter2:28

So there's something of the consensual activity at your gig. It's like we're all here, we all know what we're here for.

Jimmy Carr2:28

Some

Jimmy Carr2:33

Yes, and you shall learn it early on never defend a joke.

Jimmy Carr2:36

Because it's a joke. It's not a statement.

Presenter2:39

Does it bug you then when as as does happen I mean relatively often that that the press will take something that you have said at a gig and go to the group of people at whom it includes those people might be amputees those people might be uh people involved in rape crisis centre and say what do you think of what Jimmy Carr said? Does that bug you when that happens?

Jimmy Carr3:00

Not not so much. If you sort of believe in free speech, if you think I've got the right to say that, then they've got the right to be offended.

Speaker 23:04

Mm.

Speaker 23:06

Hmm.

Jimmy Carr3:06

Just because they're offended doesn't make them right. Part of reason debate. No one should be making drawing a line and saying, Well, that's okay and that isn't okay. Sh there should be reason debate and if they're upset by it, so be it. Because no one remembers the jokes.

Presenter3:17

No, they don't.

Jimmy Carr3:18

You know, the thing about offensive is, you know, people talk about why it's an offensive joke or I was offended by that and you go, well, the people that come and see my show aren't offended because they don't remember what I said. No one ever remembers what you say. They remember how you make them feel. And at the end of two hours, they feel quite joyful and giddy and they've been to see a comedy show and they laughed a lot at all the jokes. It is that thing of being you're the drug dealer and the drug I deal in is already on them.

Jimmy Carr3:41

It's releasing the endorphin that's already in there, and that's and laughter is such a social thing, it's part of who we are. It predates language, it's an amazing, it's a gift.

Presenter3:49

And so who is your sounding board for the material?

Jimmy Carr3:51

Oh, the audience. I constantly have a file on my phone. I'm constantly, I'll be halfway through dinner going, right? I've got to just write down. I've had a half an idea for something. And it's that thing of I never edit when I'm trying to be creative. Always write, never refuse the muse, is the line, isn't it? You just, if you think anything might be funny, write it down.

Presenter4:01

Right.

Presenter4:07

You you drop

Presenter4:11

Let's see your first one then. What what are we going to hear?

Jimmy Carr4:13

Kanye West stronger. It's just so positive. I don't think there's any other gift in life as good as having a positive disposition, being a happy person. And it hasn't always been that way, but I'm I'm a very happy person. I don't know what he's talking about half the time, Kanye West, but he's just kind of wonderfully out there.

Speaker 34:32

That nap nap that that don't kill me It only makes it stronger I need you to hurry up now Cause I can't wait much longer I know I got to be right now Cause I can't get much stronger Man, I've been waiting all night now That's how long I've been on ya

Speaker 34:57

I need your rights.

Presenter5:03

That was Kanye West and Stronger. Let's go back, Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carr5:06

That song has never been introduced in that voice before.

Presenter5:09

How would you like me to do it?

Jimmy Carr5:10

That was Kanye West and Strong.

Presenter5:12

I can only be who I am.

Presenter5:15

Uh

Presenter5:16

The summer of 2012, you'll remember us, of course, you were embroiled in a big tax scandal. This was front-page stuff. Even the Prime Minister David Cameron made a statement on it. You'd taken part in this tax avoidance scheme. It wasn't illegal, but by many people's estimation it was immoral. You didn't make a joke out of it at the time, which was interesting to me. You apologised. You apologised quickly and succinctly. You said you were apologising for your lack of judgment in getting involved in it. Is that fair? Yeah, no.

Jimmy Carr5:46

Yeah, no, that that's exactly what I said. If the Prime Minister of the country that you live in breaks off from the G twenty summit in Mexico, he's in a meeting with the nineteen most important people in the world and he comes out and makes a press statement about your tax affairs, that is going to need dealing with right now.

Presenter6:00

You are a man who doubtless has a team. I mean, you know, you'll have a a manager, I'm guess, you have an agent's office, you maybe have somebody who deals with your publicity. When I read the statement at the time, it sounded like you'd written it. I wrote the statement and I think you've got a like. You didn't get advice from anyone?

Jimmy Carr6:15

I got advice from friends, but I mean, most of the advice was you just keep quiet, this will go away in a couple of days. But as soon as the Prime Minister comments on something like that, you've got to get out in front of it. And also, you need to own it. Sometimes when footballers are involved in these things, people kind of go, well, he probably didn't know what was going on, and he got advice. I don't think anyone was buying that line with me. I think people thought he probably knew what he was doing.

Presenter6:35

Yes,'cause this is a smart guy who passes comment who's articulate who's educating

Jimmy Carr6:36

Because this is smart.

Jimmy Carr6:38

If someone comes to you and says, look, do you want to pay less tax, it's totally legal, you can do this thing, and if it ever comes up, you just have to pay them, you go, yeah, fine, great. In the end, you make good. You have to go back and say, right, I'll pay every penny of tax I ever owed.

Presenter6:52

What did you learn about yourself from that?

Jimmy Carr6:55

I think the greatest thing it taught me was when you have a friend in trouble, call.

Presenter7:00

Uh

Jimmy Carr7:00

That was the big lesson. If you have a friend and they're in the paper or they're having a problem with something and you don't know what to say or someone's just died or someone's been diagnosed with something, call them. But quite a lot of people call again and again every day for a couple of weeks just to check in. You alright? You okay? You dealing with that? When you're in the middle of that, like, oh, could this be a career ender? Could this be something where, oh, he's involved in a thing and now he's not on TV anymore, now he doesn't sell tickets anymore?

Presenter7:26

You anticipated my next question, which was, you are somebody who has worked incredibly hard to get to where you are. You seem to enjoy your work very, very much. Was that the worst thing that could have happened that that would have ended your career?

Jimmy Carr7:41

Um

Jimmy Carr7:41

I guess. I mean, with something like that, that's the worst case scenario. So, I mean, you know, even worst case scenario, I've had a pretty good run. I mean, in, you know, in Shobiz terms, when you arrive, it's very exciting. Because fame as a comic, I think, is all about trajectory. It's like, it's how famous are you now compared to where you were last year? And I've been at the same level for probably 12 years now. That's very lucky to have a long, sustained career in Shobiz. So it's going to disappear at some point.

Presenter8:08

Some more music, Jimmy Carr. Tell me about this second one. What are we going to hear?

Jimmy Carr8:11

I the Stone Roses, I am the Resurrection.

Presenter8:13

Pause

Jimmy Carr8:14

Because that's the album that came out when I was sort of leaving school. You know, friends got cars, we could borrow our parents' car, you could drive round and be free, and that's the soundtrack to those years. That to me reminds me of getting through school and the freedom of kind of, right, we're out of that now, and we kind of felt like mini grown-ups.

Speaker 38:37

Words I don't need anything from you.

Speaker 38:43

I don't care where you've been or what you plan to do.

Speaker 38:52

I am the resurrection.

Speaker 39:01

Uh

Speaker 39:02

I hate you as I hate

Presenter9:07

That was the Stone Roses, and I am the Resurrection. I feel very self-conscious now when I'm back and I sing these pieces of music, Jimmy Carr. I feel like.

Jimmy Carr9:13

Yeah.

Presenter9:14

You were born in 1972, the middle son of three boys, born to Nora and Jim Carr. How much humour was there in the home growing up? My mum was in

Jimmy Carr9:23

Crazy.

Presenter9:24

Incredibly funny.

Jimmy Carr9:24

Was she? I mean, really, genuinely a very funny person, and not in the way that I'm funny with jokes. I mean, just funny bones.

Presenter9:32

Can you give me a flavor of her?

Jimmy Carr9:33

I think it's fair to say she swore a lot, like a sailor, and like the stock phrases of like if you ever paid her a compliment, if you ever said, Oh, you look well, she go, I look like a whore at a christening.

Jimmy Carr9:44

Right, okay. I mean, I think you look nice. And she was just like, she really kind of lit up a room. She was kind of a larger-than-life Irish lady, a beautiful voice, and really she was extraordinary. Obviously, it's your mum, and you think she's special. But lots of my friends were friends with my mum, quite apart from me. I remember coming home from university, and my friend, sort of Jared and Giles, would be round having tea with mum. I would go, well,

Presenter10:08

What are you doing here? I was just...

Jimmy Carr10:10

Right.

Presenter10:10

Uh

Jimmy Carr10:10

Yeah.

Presenter10:10

Did she have charisma?

Jimmy Carr10:12

Yeah, like a like a ton of charisma.

Presenter10:15

And they were from Limerick, your parents. Did you go back there much?

Jimmy Carr10:18

I go back there now and I go back to Ireland a lot and play a lot of gigs over there. I'm quite proud of I've got an Irish passport and, you know.

Presenter10:19

Do you?

Jimmy Carr10:26

When I was growing up, I was very aware of being in an immigrant family, the sort of late 70s.

Presenter10:32

Yeah. The bombings, the time of the bombings in London and all that.

Jimmy Carr10:34

Yeah, I was I r really clearly remember an incident of someone sort of saying something um racist to my mum in a news agent.

Jimmy Carr10:42

When there was some IRA bombing or something, and someone said something very sort of negative to my mum, and sort of feeling like, oh, we're not like everyone else. And on the one hand, that's a negative thing. And on the other hand, it makes you feel very special.

Presenter10:43

Well something it's more

Presenter10:53

And a Catholic family, where was Catholicism in in the family? I mean, were you very reg

Jimmy Carr10:57

My mum was very religious. We'd go on a Sunday, but not every Sunday. But it was around. And I believed in the magic.

Jimmy Carr11:06

But I believed.

Presenter11:07

Were you were you an intense little boy?

Jimmy Carr11:09

Yeah, I think so. I think I was a little bit, yeah. It's an odd thing, you can't really change people's perceptions of

Jimmy Carr11:15

Who you are, and I'm aware of how I come across now and how I appear. It's weird when I look back at my childhood and you know that that song representing kind of leaving school, school was not easy for me. I couldn't read until I was about sort of 10, 11 with any level of ability. I mean, I just couldn't. And I was so fearful of getting up in front of the class and reading something out. I think the perception would be, oh, it was very easy for him and the quick thing in an interview and even in the intro is, oh, he went to Cambridge. And you go, yeah, the the struggle to get there though.

Presenter11:45

Um tell me then about your next piece of music where you can

Jimmy Carr11:47

I'm gonna hear yours third. This is Paul Simon, the obvious child, and I used to go to the Slough Records Centre every Monday with my mum, and we would buy records together. It was on the Farnham Road in Slough. You could see the Miles Factory from there, and the whole world smelt of chocolate when I was growing up. We would go and buy records, and then we would take them home, and we would play them and dance around the living room. And it was a real kind of ritual of kind of going, right, what are we gonna get? And I really, really remember in our house getting this song home. And weirdly, even now when I dance, there's a real family dance. We have a weird little groove shuffle thing that my mum used to do. That's exactly how I dance now. It almost makes me a bit kind of tearful to think, but it's the same move. And I remember dancing around the living room to this and being happy.

Speaker 312:33

Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself, How it's strange that some moons are like he did.

Speaker 312:43

Sunny is here, look from ice, coolers down from the snow.

Speaker 312:48

And the idly phones through the pages

Speaker 312:55

Some have fled from themselves, or struggled from you again.

Speaker 313:03

Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls, runs his hands through

Presenter13:10

That was Paul Simon and the obvious child. Well, let's ask the obvious question then, Jimmy Carr.

Presenter13:15

The class clown. So the cliche goes that it all begins in school with comedians and that they win people round by making jokes in class. Were you that little boy? Um, I don't think so.

Jimmy Carr13:25

I think if my school friends were listening to this, I don't think they would think, oh well, yeah, he was much funnier than everyone else.

Presenter13:30

You you said to me a moment ago, I was ten or eleven before I could read a book properly and and most people would say, Well, you know, I was a dyslexic kid. You notably did not say that.

Jimmy Carr13:38

I've been diagnosed as having dyslexia, but I sort of think you get to choose your narrative in life. You get to pick what you say and how you say it. And you can define yourself by things. You can be the kid who had dyslexia or you can be the kid that went to Cambridge.

Presenter13:47

Yeah.

Presenter13:55

Well, you can also be both. You can be which is a rather remarkable bit of your tale, which is the kid who had dyslexia who got fluorides.

Jimmy Carr13:55

Well you can

Jimmy Carr13:56

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr14:02

I did well. It was ridiculous to talk about my show off about my A-levels on Radio 4. Brilliant. My mother would be so proud.

Presenter14:10

But we're kind of working this thing out. I mean, as you say, you know, I say it in the introduction, it's my l and you said there, well, you know, people think my life sounded so easy, you know, brought up in Berkshire, went to Cambridge. Well, there's nothing about it that seems easy to me if you were somebody who couldn't read a book till they were ten.

Jimmy Carr14:23

I suppose it makes you sort of think early on, I can sort of do stuff. I think sort of the great gift was I moved schools when I was 16.

Presenter14:27

I think so.

Presenter14:30

Right.

Jimmy Carr14:30

Right. And I think you become a prisoner of the past as a teenager. It's very difficult to kind of rewrite the book and go, well, I'm going to study hard now. And so you sort of reinvented yourself, did you? Yeah, totally. I arrived at the school. There's another new boy in my class. I think we both come from sort of schools that aren't as good, and we both kind of looked around and went, We could do really well here. And then there were two teachers that absolutely saw it. There was a guy called Mr. Clay and a guy called Mr. File that went, Oh, you guys are really bright. You could do incredibly well. And we went, No, what? Who are you thinking of? And they went, Yeah, you'd be fine. You apply to Cambridge, yeah.

Presenter14:30

Yeah.

Presenter14:38

And so you sort of reinvented yourself, did you?

Jimmy Carr15:04

It was interesting that thing of like self-belief. It often does come from someone else going, you're going to be fine, just do this.

Presenter15:10

Uh

Jimmy Carr15:10

Such a pivotal thing.

Presenter15:12

Let's have some more music, Jimmy Carr. Uh it's time for your fourth.

Jimmy Carr15:14

I was obsessed by music when I was at college and

Presenter15:17

You played guitar and you sang in a band, right?

Jimmy Carr15:18

Yeah, all of that kind of stuff. And really bought a lot of records. And the Pixies were a band that kind of carried me through. And I always thought they were just an incredible group. And this song, it's quite a hard song. It's Where Kirk Cobain got the riff for Smells Like Teen Spirit. And for me, it just kind of reminds me of all my kind of college years.

Speaker 315:41

Valid board, but pioneer We're not just kids to say the least

Presenter16:09

That was the Pixies and UMass. And again, I'm guessing I said that wrong. No, I mean, that's. Should I still say that was the Pixies and UMass? Yeah, a little bit more like that. Is that better?

Jimmy Carr16:13

Should I say

Speaker 216:14

That

Speaker 216:15

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr16:16

Yeah, a little bit more like.

Presenter16:17

A little bit better. So you studied political science at Cambridge. What are you?

Jimmy Carr16:22

I did, yeah, social and political science. It was a bit like doing a general knowledge quiz as a degree.

Presenter16:27

What are your strongest memories of your student days? I'm guessing it's probably not the studying.

Jimmy Carr16:32

Yeah, I mean I did okay. I I think uh I probably could have done a little bit better if I'd worked a little bit harder in the last year, but

Jimmy Carr16:39

I I mean, you're kinda busy, right?

Presenter16:41

So what were you busy doing?

Jimmy Carr16:42

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr16:44

No, not having sex. It was d you know, d drinking p fairly heavily. Yeah, late to sex. Very late to sex.

Presenter16:51

Very later. Maybe 26. You lost your virginity at 26. I read. This is not that. I mean, I read this. I know this is true.

Jimmy Carr16:52

Milk

Jimmy Carr16:55

I mean, I

Jimmy Carr16:57

Yeah, I know. And thank you very much for that. I really appreciate it. And I've really thanked you. The the no, yeah, later. I quite like talking about that though, because I sort of think when I really remember being a teenager and thinking, this is I'm not normal, I'm weird. I think maybe the religion playing into it and and not meeting the right person, not meeting the, you know.

Jimmy Carr17:16

Butter.

Presenter17:17

Yeah.

Presenter17:17

You say you don't know what that was. I think I was a little bit kind of repressed. You took

Jimmy Carr17:24

Your religion at its word?

Jimmy Carr17:27

Uh no, I don't think so. I think I would have been fine. A slightly late developer, I think, with the reading as well. And I'm okay with that. It's quite nice to talk about it on the radio because you sort of feel like, well, someone will will be listening who's sixteen and going. Hang on, what's happening? It's it's fine, it's you know.

Presenter17:40

You know, when was the beginning of the doubt over Catholicism?

Jimmy Carr17:45

It was probably at college it started. I remember my friend Henry and I talking a lot about Darwin, and then you get very interested in that and sort of think, Oh, that's amazing, that's the story of life. And then you're with people that are studying natural science at Cambridge, so you go to a couple of lectures and you sort of hear about it and you go, Wow, that's extraordinary. And then a little bit of doubt creeps in. The final straw was thinking about, well, everyone doesn't believe in most gods and just taking it one further. But thinking, well, if I'm right about this god, all the others are wrong.

Jimmy Carr18:16

And that struck me as an incredibly arrogant viewpoint. So if I'm right about this one, all these other guys are idiots. But it happened very slowly. It wasn't like in one conversation I went I went, Oh, it's the scales have fallen from my eyes in reverse. Maybe the scales are on. And when it went, there was a real sense of loss.

Presenter18:24

Like in one conversation I went

Presenter18:28

Yeah.

Presenter18:33

You didn't go and talk to priests or you didn't talk theologist.

Jimmy Carr18:35

No, I never told my mother.

Presenter18:38

You never told your mother.

Jimmy Carr18:39

I think it would have broken her heart.

Jimmy Carr18:42

My dad couldn't have.

Jimmy Carr18:44

The fact that it went just before she died was really'cause that and I really felt like when she left it was oh, that's when I needed it. That's when it would have been really nice to think, Oh, she's up there somewhere and no.

Presenter18:46

It's really

Jimmy Carr18:58

And it made me want to work harder and kind of put more into life because this is it. And what age were you then when she died? Uh, twenty six, twenty seven, something around then, yeah. I mean, I still find myself now doing things thinking, Oh, she'd like this.

Jimmy Carr19:12

I mean, even being here today on Desert Island Discs, she'd love that.

Presenter19:17

Tell me about your next piece of music, Jimmy Carr. What are we going to hear?

Jimmy Carr19:19

It's Death Cab for Cutie, I Will Follow You Into the Dark. For me it's kind of a an atheist hymn, and you know I do miss the singing.

Presenter19:28

Church singing

Jimmy Carr19:29

Yeah, when you lose your religion you kind of lose like all the best songs for hundreds of years were all about God. I mean they're all about love now. But this to me feels like it's uh it's kind of a nice thing to be an atheist I think because you become a humanist and you sort of think well we're sort of you know humans are incredible and you've got this one life and it's we're so privileged to be alive and it's not going to last forever. You know try and enjoy it. Spend it with nice people and when it's over this seems like a beautiful sentiment.

Speaker 319:57

Love of mine, someday you will die, but I'll be close behind, I'll follow you into the dark.

Speaker 320:10

No blinding light, Or tunnels to gates of white, Just our hands clasp so tight.

Speaker 320:19

Waiting for the hint of a spar

Speaker 320:22

If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied

Presenter20:27

Death cap for cutie, I will follow you into the dark. Um

Presenter20:32

Jimmy Carr, I'm so interested in so much of what you've just told me, and I'm very interested.

Presenter20:38

in this idea that you you abandoned a life, and it's a life that that a lot of people well, you'd worked hard enough to get there. You know, you'd got your degree, you got I'm sure getting a job at Shell was a big deal, I'm sure it was a really, pretty well

Jimmy Carr20:44

There

Presenter20:49

Reward a job?

Jimmy Carr20:50

I'm very keen on quotes, and there's one I really like. The good is the enemy of the best. And I had a really good life, but it didn't feel like it was all that I could be.

Presenter20:59

So the courage to tear it all up, the courage to say, I put my religion to one side, I'm going to pursue this thing that, by anybody's estimation, it's a long shot. It seems

Jimmy Carr21:08

It's like looking back now a terrifying decision to leave my job. But at the time I just thought, well, d I'm so miserable here. I just want to get out.

Presenter21:15

But you yourself have described it as a sort of early midlife crisis.

Jimmy Carr21:18

I like talking about being

Jimmy Carr21:21

Sad. I was sad at that stage. Yeah. Because I think the term depression is really overused. Because people talk about being depressed when actually they're sad. If it's circumstantial, you're sad. And there's much more stigma to being sad than being depressed. But being depressed is a real thing. It's a chemical imbalance, and the people that have got it, it's always dismissed as, oh, just cheer up, mate. I didn't suffer with depression. I was lucky. I was just sad. And if you're just sad, you can kind of do something about it.

Presenter21:49

Can you tell me what was making you sad?

Jimmy Carr21:50

I was kinda bored of my life. It's so simplistic on one level that I was sad, and then I thought, I know what'll cheer me up, jokes.

Presenter21:59

I want to believe that. Is that true?

Jimmy Carr22:01

Well, it's almost, I mean, I went and did loads of therapy. I wasn't interested in why.

Jimmy Carr22:06

I was interested in what can we do now. The fundamental question with all the therapy I did was what do you want? And that strikes me as the most important question in life, is what do you want? Finding out how to get it is comparatively easy.

Presenter22:18

So you reprogrammed yourself. So you sort of thought, I'm programming myself for success.

Jimmy Carr22:22

Not even for success. Looking back now, because of the way things have gone, it looks like I left my job to be on TV presenting game shows.

Presenter22:30

Well that doesn't work, you can't do it.

Jimmy Carr22:31

But you know, I left my job to go while I'm going to go to comedy clubs and hang out. And success came very early. But success-very early. I mean, that's the thing at the end of the day. But success doesn't look.

Presenter22:39

I mean that's the thing that you're doing.

Jimmy Carr22:43

Like people think it looks.

Presenter22:45

How does it look?

Jimmy Carr22:46

More success for me was the comedy store in Leicester Square and I was doing a twenty-minute show and I got paid 200 quid.

Jimmy Carr22:54

And then there were three shows that weekend, and you could double it with the banana cabaret in Balaum. And I went, right, fine. I'm absolutely fine. And I'm making money off my wits. I mean, quite literally. And I just thought, well, that's it's absolutely fine. Everything else is gravy. Did you ever see?

Presenter23:10

Suffer, nerves or self-doubt?

Jimmy Carr23:13

Yeah, but what's the great line? Pressure is a privilege. If you're dry heaving by the side of the Tonight Show set going, I've got four and a half minutes to make it in America, you're on the Tonight Show. Come on.

Presenter23:26

Have you done that?

Presenter23:28

How did it how did it go?

Jimmy Carr23:28

People

Jimmy Carr23:29

Amazing.

Presenter23:29

To be clear, the sort of dry heave that you wear at the side of the stage dry.

Jimmy Carr23:32

Yeah, I mean, a hundred percent, yeah. Lo but you can easily lie to yourself and just go, Oh god, I was really excited about that gig. Remember how you couldn't eat for eight hours and you got sick a lot?

Jimmy Carr23:42

I love being excited, mate.

Presenter23:44

It's time for some more music, Jimmy Carr. Tell me about this.

Jimmy Carr23:47

Bell and Sebastian, The Boy with the Arab Strap, is the song that best sums up my Edinburgh experiences. And I started doing comedy in London on the circuit. And then I heard about this thing called the Edinburgh Festival. I was vaguely aware at university of people going to Edinburgh in the summer and thinking, but it's not sunny. Go to France. It's really sunny. What are you doing? And just being totally unaware, being really ignorant of that. And maybe I didn't listen to enough Radio 4 growing up. But suddenly then...

Jimmy Carr24:15

Discovering Edinburgh, going up there for the first time and doing these new act competitions and going, Oh, this is oh, like like a paradise, like an absolute paradise. I'm kind of out of it now, but those years were just incredible. And this song, it was just always around and for me it really summed up Edinburgh.

Speaker 324:33

To learn from your time in the solitary cell of your mind There is noise to distraction for anything good

Speaker 324:42

The old prison f

Speaker 324:46

Curling my life with the chaos of trouble Cause anything's bad to the part isolation I miss the bus

Speaker 324:56

Lays on your back with the boy with the iron strap

Speaker 325:04

The boy from the Arab Strah

Presenter25:10

Bell and Sebastian and the boy with the Arab strap. Jimmy Carr, where's the line that you will not cross? What would you not tell a joke about?

Jimmy Carr25:17

I don't think there is a line.

Jimmy Carr25:19

I think anything is fair game for comedy and

Presenter25:24

Anything?

Jimmy Carr25:24

Yeah, pr pretty pretty much, yeah. I mean, there's th things in very specific locales that you cannot joke about. But everything else is kind of fine and it's how you do it. It's about the intent.

Presenter25:36

Is there a hypocrisy in that, do you think? You know, if you think, well, I'm in front of Liverpool fans, so I won't tell, we can all imagine what the certain areas that would be of immense sensitivity there are.

Jimmy Carr25:44

It's very interesting, actually, you mentioned that.

Presenter25:48

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr25:48

Because you've absolutely hit the nail on the head. I would say the one thing that you could never joke about in the UK is Hillsborough. It's a tragedy that's touched people in a very specific way, and I cannot imagine anyone coming up with a joke about that.

Presenter26:02

If you were to go to Abervan, or if you were to go to Dundlane, those communities would have been touched equally by horrendous tragedies in you know, among people that were close and well known to them. Why would those be different?

Jimmy Carr26:14

I haven't sort of analyzed it in any great detail, but it does strike me that it's a very, you know, most things heal with time to a degree.

Presenter26:22

Yes.

Jimmy Carr26:22

And that hasn't. You can joke about religion, and I do often. And you can joke about death, you can joke about murders, and you can joke about disasters. And if comedy has any purpose other than the the obvious social, it's remote tickling is what laughter is. You know, you're building a social group. But if it has any purpose, you know, it does help people cope with stuff and and, you know, make it okay.

Presenter26:39

Mm-hmm.

Presenter26:46

Let's have another piece of music. Tell me what we're gonna hear now. Should we have the killers? Let's have that.

Jimmy Carr26:51

When you were young. It's a song that just really reminds me of being on the road. It was kind of my walk on music for a lot of years. The opening eight bars of this. It's great to walk on stage to. But also it was in the car a lot, was, you know, travelling up and down the motorway, and the lyric of it just seems to be about looking back.

Jimmy Carr27:09

when you were young and where you've ended up and would you be happy with that? And I think I'm you know it sounds smug but I'm really pleased the turn that I took to do this with my life.

Presenter27:19

Seems to be working out okay.

Jimmy Carr27:21

Yes, all right, ma'am.

Speaker 327:23

And your heartache

Speaker 327:26

Waiting on some beautiful boy to to save you from your old ways You play forgiveness, watching now here he comes He doesn't look a thing like Jesus But he talks like a gentleman like you imagine when you

Speaker 327:45

Yeah.

Speaker 327:52

Can we climb this mountain? I don't know.

Presenter27:56

When you were young, the killers. Uh Jimmy Carr, I read that uh you met your girlfriend, you've been with Caroline now for sixteen years. You met while you were auditioning. I was auditioning for a TV show, yeah, for a panel show, very o

Jimmy Carr28:06

Early on in my career. Okay, and she was in charge? She was one of the one of the producers of the show.

Presenter28:07

Uh

Presenter28:12

And I read that afterwards you said to your agent that y you couldn't possibly work on the show because you had found Caroline too attractive and that would be too distracting.

Jimmy Carr28:22

Romantic guy, but I knew

Presenter28:23

What did she think of you?

Jimmy Carr28:24

She literally wrote notes. What she was auditioning, so she wrote notes. So we have the notes of what she wrote. She says, I was a one-note comedian.

Presenter28:26

What shoes are

Jimmy Carr28:32

Uh with the eyes of a sex offender.

Jimmy Carr28:34

Is what she wrote. She actually wrote that. We've still got it. She did not know. I knew. And I met her and just thought, this is just it just felt like it felt perfect.

Speaker 328:37

Yeah.

Presenter28:38

Yeah.

Presenter28:44

How did you win a round, then?

Jimmy Carr28:46

I d I think she only came out with me because uh her boss I I now know she was reading my emails to her out loud to the office and going, Shall I go out with this guy? And her boss went, Well, it's a free meal. I mean, you know, you're not making a fortune. He'll buy you dinner. He seems nice enough.

Presenter28:53

Duh.

Presenter29:01

Does she come and watch your stand up ever?

Jimmy Carr29:03

Yeah, she used to come an awful lot early on and do a lot of notes and she didn't come as much now, but then it's you know, it's it's partly to do where with where I am in the cycle of the tour. So if I'm doing a new tour, she might come along and sort of see one of the preview shows and, you know, what about that and what about that? And she's always got kind of interesting notes and ideas on structure.

Presenter29:21

Are you somebody who plans to always be working? Or do you think is there an end game when you think, you know, when I've saved up enough money and I've I've bought the yacht, I'm gonna stop?

Presenter29:30

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr29:30

No, I would I would very much like to die with my boots on.

Presenter29:33

Would you?

Jimmy Carr29:33

Yeah, I've got no intention of stopping.

Presenter29:36

The old set of Tommy Cooper, you wanna be there, you wanna be on stage and you wanna

Jimmy Carr29:36

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr29:39

Yeah, 100%. Kendard, yeah, do it. I think if I wanted to stop and play golf, then I should have been a golfer. This is what I love doing, I love this life.

Presenter29:48

You spoke of yourself at twenty five, twenty six, that pivotal moment in your life when everything was fine, but you didn't love it, you weren't present in it, you weren't engaged in it, and you seem somebody who is viscerally present in their life now.

Jimmy Carr30:02

The first 10 years, it was almost thinking about it like it was a footballer's career and thinking, Look, I've got a little window here. I felt like so old when I got into it. I felt like 26 was so old because people start when they're at college and I felt like I've got to catch up. I never wanted to look back and think, I didn't really work hard enough, I didn't really give that a a go. If I was gonna fail, I didn't mind as long as I put everything into it.

Presenter30:26

How on earth are you going to cope on this island? No people to entertain in auditoria? No girlfriend?

Jimmy Carr30:31

Girlfriend.

Jimmy Carr30:33

Being a stand-up comic is It's Training for a Desert Island.

Jimmy Carr30:37

I think I did thirty-two countries last year.

Jimmy Carr30:39

And most of them, you know, traveling on my own, going there, doing gigs. You spend a lot of time on your own. You have to get good with your own company.

Jimmy Carr30:47

I think I'd be all right. I mean, you know, dead in a week, obviously, same as everyone else on this island, but

Presenter30:53

Tell me about your eighth disc, Jimmy Carr. What are we gonna hear?

Jimmy Carr30:56

I think this is maybe the best pop record.

Jimmy Carr30:59

Ever, it's partly about having friends over and this being on and feeling like, oh, this is like a dance floor filler, and I'm gonna do my little dance like my mum's dance and dance around the kitchen, having fun with friends. It's partly about that, and it's partly a love song, and it's the kind of love that I've experienced. I think I've been very lucky that it's been fun. It's a really upbeat love song, and most love songs, especially on this show, are quite melancholy. There's a lot of ache, and I'm not a big fan of the ache, I'm a big fan of the fun, joyous, party. So, this is, yeah, Beyonce Crazy in Love.

Speaker 231:53

I love the step so deep in your eyes. I touch on you more and more every time. When I leave, I'm begging you not to go. Call your name two, three times in a row. Such a funny thing for me to try to explain. How I'm feeling and my pride is the one to blame. Cause I know I don't understand. Just stop your look and do what no one else can.

Presenter32:13

That was Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z and Crazy in Love. You can sit down now, Jimmy Carr. So we give you some reading materials. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Jimmy Carr32:23

Right. I mean, I'll. Yeah, okay. The b the b the Bible, I really don't. I mean, we could start the fire, couldn't we? We could.

Presenter32:30

It's yours. You may do what you will with it. And you get to take one other one other book. Yeah.

Jimmy Carr32:34

One other book

Jimmy Carr32:35

One other book. It's a very difficult question, this, because if you take it at face value,

Jimmy Carr32:40

It's not about your favourite book.

Jimmy Carr32:42

Because my favourite book I've read.

Speaker 332:46

Yeah.

Jimmy Carr32:46

So, how frustrating would it be to get to the desert island and you go, oh, there's one book, brilliant, that'll pass a day, and then, oh, I've read this. Like, it would be Raymond Carver's what we talk about when we talk about love. It was favourite book. But I don't think I would take that because I know it and it's great, but it's I've read it. I would take the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Speaker 333:00

Okay.

Presenter33:00

Uh

Speaker 333:00

Uh

Presenter33:08

Okay, that's yours. You're allowed a luxury too.

Jimmy Carr33:11

A luxury.

Presenter33:11

Now this makes life more enjoyable, more bearable. It's got to be something that isn't too useful.

Presenter33:18

I've got a a a s

Jimmy Carr33:19

Shh. Uh

Presenter33:20

Strange relationship

Jimmy Carr33:20

with coffee. I love coffee. I started drinking coffee very early in life. I used to get given a bottle of quite sweet coffee in my cot when I used to go for an afternoon rest. It's terrible parenting, but you know, it was the seventies, it was a different era. And uh I would take a coffee machine.

Presenter33:39

You may have that. If you had to choose just one of these disks to save, which one would it be?

Jimmy Carr33:45

I think it would be the death cab for Cutie. I will follow you into the dark.

Presenter33:49

It's yours. Jimmy Carr, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Jimmy Carr33:53

Can't believe your luck.

Presenter34:39

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.

Jimmy Carr35:11

This is the BBC.