Comedian Jimeoin explores his own ‘shortcomings’ for laughs in new show coming soon to Cambridge
Born in England and raised in Northern Ireland, it wasn’t until Jimeoin (born James Eoin Stephen Paul McKeown) moved to Australia at the age of 22 that he found his way into stand-up, and it was pretty much by accident.
Expect observational humour at its finest when the now internationally acclaimed comedian, actor and TV star brings his Jimeoin – The Craic! tour to Cambridge later this month. When the Cambridge Independent spoke to the well travelled fifty-something, he was in his home town of Portstewart, which he left more than 30 years ago to travel to Australia and seek work as a builder.
“I lost both my parents a few years ago now,” he says, “so I went to the church just to say a prayer for them – not that I’m a deeply religious person, far from it, but you know when you connect with somebody in a certain place... that’s where I’ve been this morning.”
Jimeoin always enjoys coming back to Northern Ireland. “Even at the door there – I’m staying in a rented apartment – I knew the postman... In a town, you know people, which is a bit different from just being on tour because you don’t anybody.
“People come to the show but you don’t really know people personally. It’s nice to have some sort of connection with somewhere over here, even though in Australia I have a strong connection with a lot of people.”
The comic, a regular at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, had a show in Dublin the day after we spoke, with three shows in Northern Ireland to follow. “It’s been going great,” he says of the gigs he’s been doing, “just coming back after Covid, getting back into the swing of it... I did Edinburgh again this year.
“I’m enjoying it. I’ve been doing stand-up for a long time but because I lived in Australia, it’s only now that I’m starting to get a nice audience in the UK, so it’s a kind of rebirth of my career.”
Jimeoin speaks of the “strong” stand-up comedy scene in Australia and mentions Jim Jefferies as an example. “I prefer them [Australian comedians] to a lot of American acts, to be honest,” he notes, recalling that he had “no intention” of doing stand-up when he first moved down under.
“I didn’t even know what it was,” admits Jimeoin, whose 2006 and 2008 seasons at the Edinburgh Fringe smashed box office records before those festivals even opened. “I went there as a builder and then I discovered stand-up by default. I knew jokes – the first night I did it I got told a whole load of jokes and that was my introduction to it.
“And I watched it and thought, ‘I wouldn’t mind turning my mind towards this’ and no real thought of it being a career or anything. It was just a night out, like some people go cave-diving or something; just something to do just as a little bit of a laugh or side thing, and it was a way of meeting people, like the other comics. We were all in the same environment.
“We were all nervous getting up, and then I met a whole group of people who were into comedy – and I never really watched comedy. This was back in the time of videos and people would tape shows. They’d go, ‘Here, watch this show in America’ or ‘Watch that show, tell me what you think of that’.
“I’d think, ‘There’s a whole world of people here’, and then because I hadn’t really watched it, I think I had a different angle on it and that’s why it took off so quickly for me.”
One of the comedians Jimeoin does recall watching was the late American comic Garry Shandling, although he was also always aware of Billy Connolly, Dave Allen and Tommy Cooper. “I watched a lot of comedy, I watched a lot of British stuff as well,” he remembers, “and stand-ups that I liked, that I thought ‘Oh yeah, they’re kind of interesting’. Sean Hughes, for example, I was thinking he had a good angle, and then I went to Edinburgh...
“The honest truth is I didn’t really watch much of it before I started doing it, and it was only when I started getting good at it that I was discovering what other people were doing. So in some ways, it’s kind of nice just to have your own voice.”
So what can we expect from Jimeoin’s show in Cambridge? He says: “I’m just trying to make people laugh. It doesn’t have any politics in it, really, and it’s not rough and topical – it’s more of my shortcomings as a person. It’s just the ridiculousness of it all, just being in a room trying to get people to laugh. They’re certainly none the wiser at the end of it all, and I don’t have any strong opinions on anything really.
“It’s just daft, it’s trying to capture the essence of being in good form – and it’s nice for a whole group of people that don’t really know each other all collectively laughing at the same moment at something. That’s really what you’re trying to gain, more than a point that you’re trying to get across, or some issue that you’re angry with. It’s quite shallow in some ways but such a beautiful feeling when you all collectively laugh.
“When I saw stand-up comedy first of all, I described it somewhere between going to see theatre and going to see a band. It’s just such a good feeling when it works. I’m hoping it does!”
[Read more: Comedian and YouTuber Daniel Howell: ‘I like to break the ice with a state of terror’, ‘I haven’t watched TV since 1987’: interview with Australian comedian Steve Hughes]
The show shares its name with Jimeoin’s debut feature film from 1999. His second film, The Extra, followed in 2005. He has made numerous television appearances, both in Australia and in the UK. His credits over here include The Royal Variety Performance, Live at the Apollo and Sunday Night at the Palladium.
He has also performed all over the world, from New York to New Zealand, Aspen to Amsterdam, the Middle East to the Far East, and says his dream gigs would be at the Royal Albert Hall and Madison Square Garden. But Jimeoin also expresses admiration for the Cambridge Corn Exchange, where he will be appearing on Saturday, October 22, calling it “such an amazing building”.
For tickets, priced £21.50, visit cornex.co.uk. For more on Jimeoin, go to jimeoin.com.
