Undated Articles
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Undated
Comedy Central
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Undated
The Mighty Boosh
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Undated
Not much writing, but two pics I've never seen before.
The Mighty Boosh
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Articles from 2006
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17/01/05
The Guardian
duncan.campbell@guardian.co.uk
Good news for the beleaguered Jimmy Carr, television presenter and after-dinner speaker. The BBC has had to apologise for his "joke" on Radio 4's Loose Ends about Gypsy women being smelly and he has taken much flak for it since. But help is at hand. "I would defend Jimmy Carr. He's a great comedian and a breath of fresh air," says Dr Phil Edwards, the press spokesman for the British National party, when we ring him on the subject. Jimmy is available for corporate events - Abbey National and Haymarket are recent clients - so it will be a relief for him to know that there are clearly still audiences around the country that can appreciate his cutting-edge humour.
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08/01/06
The Observer
A Bad Week for...
Jimmy Carr
The golden boy of British comedy - well, he's sort of funny - has fallen out with the BBC after the broadcaster was forced to apologise for a joke he told about gypsy women smelling unpleasant. The line was included in the broadcast of an edited programme, and 'should never have been transmitted,' admitted a spokesman for the Beeb. The secretary of the Gypsy Council said: 'Does he want people to spit at gypsy women because they smell?'
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06/01/06
The Guardian 'What is your point Jimmy Carr?'
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05/01/06
BBC apologises for joke about Gypsy women on radio show
Articles from 2005
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02/09/05
The Guardian
Jimmy Carr on 'The Aristocrats'
It is genuinely interesting to see a movie that is that offensive and yet there's no violence or sex, just words. But it really is - full of vile incestuous coprophiliac images that get thrown into your head. The idea of sharing this type of joke with the public is interesting. That's where comedy is going at the moment. In my comedy, I try to be as rude and outrageous as I am with my friends. It's about crediting the audience with intelligence, and with the ability to detect irony. This film credits me with being able to understand, and that pleases me.
It might be one of those movies by which people get offended on other people's behalf. People often say to me after my shows: "I'm not offended, but I'm sure plenty people will be." But in fact, most people get stuff. As long as the jokes are told in the spirit of a joke. Unless there's hate or malice or genuine prejudice in a joke, I'm not offended by it.
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16/08/05
Carr crash humour
Leo Benedictus
The Guardian
Three great topics have dominated the comedy at this year's Fringe: suicide bombers, the Pope and Jimmy Carr. While the first two frankly invite controversy, what has Carr ever done to annoy people? At last year's Fringe he was still a rising comic with some TV experience, but 12 months and a lot more television later, he is virtually an establishment hate figure, mocked with varying degrees of gentleness in the shows of Richard Herring, Stephen K Amos, Adam Buxton, The Trap, Howard Read, Stewart Lee, Ray Peacock and no doubt many more besides.
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26/03/05
The Guardian
Jimmy Carr
"I got phoned up and asked to judge Mr Gay UK," joshes Jimmy Carr. "I said, 'It'd be a pleasure. He's against God, he's against nature and he's going to hell.'" There are lots of comedians who can keep an audience moderately amused for 20 minutes, but once in a while, a comic comes along who really knows how to entertain. Carr makes his audience howl with laughter, and the reason he reduces them to hysterics is that he writes better one-liners than anyone since Steven Wright. Wright's shtick was surrealism, Carr's is cruelty, and his civilised stage persona allows him to do gags that more blokish comics would never get away with. "My girlfriend said to me, 'Have you been having sex behind my back?' I said, 'Who the hell d'you think it was? And another thing - it wouldn't kill you to turn round once in a while and check how I'm doing'." If you've only seen him on TV, you don't know the half of it.
William Cook
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25/03/05
The Mirror "Carr's bitter feud with his father"
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12/04/05
TV stars eat too.
The Mirror
NEVER let it be said that Jimmy Carr isn't an adventurous eater. TV Land spies spotted him dining on yaki soba while drinking fruit juice at Wagamama in Manchester... before leaving a £1 tip.
Hope you enjoyed your meal, big spender!
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07/02/05
Manchester Online: Jimmy's Big Project
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01/02/05
BBC Top Gear
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Articles from 2004
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10/12/04
The Telegraph
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05/12/04
The Observer "These things I know"
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03/12/04
The Guardian "The boy behind the man"
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17/10/04
The Observer "Withering heights"
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22/08/04
Numb Magazine
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07/09/04
Chortle Interview
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31/07/04
The Telegraph "The idea is to say the unsayable"
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27/06/04
The Observer
"Jimmy Carr; Comedian
Jimmy Carr isn't so much cruel to be kind as just plain cruel. On his Channel 4 show Distraction he humiliates contestants verbally and physically, as well as destroying their prizes before their eyes. His live stand-up is equally biting. A sample line is: 'A cat has nine lives. Which makes them ideal for experimentation.' But he's funny as well as nasty, with a stage and TV presence (and work ethic) that could make him one of Britain's best-known comedians."
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13/06/04
The Times
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Articles from 2003
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28/12/03
The Observer
"Jimmy Carr is a far smarter comedian than his not-very-cerebral game shows Your Face or Mine and Distraction on Channel 4 allow him to demonstrate."
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07/12/03
The Observer - The A-Z of Laughter
"Jimmy Carr
Why: With his velvet smoking-jacket, arched eyebrow and caustic urbanity, Carr's persona is the acme of Oxbridge sneeriness, and looks like Lloyd Cole dressed as Noel Coward. As many have discovered before him, a posh voice gives you licence to express outrageously tasteless and illiberal sentiments, but Carr is also an excellent joke writer and has made a brave return to the traditional two-part gag. Not bad for a guy who used to have the distinctly unfunny job of marketing for Shell.
Funniest moment: 'I was stopped in the street by a woman with a clipboard. She said, "Could you spare a few minutes for cancer research?" I said, "All right, but we won't get much done."'
What next: Currently at the Soho Theatre. Next year he's got more gigs lined up, plus more work for Channel 4."
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31/08/03
The Obsever - Article on Hannah Chambers, Jimmy's manager.
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17/08/03
The Observer "Groomed for Sucess"
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04/08/03
The Telegraph
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Articles from 2002
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22/12/02
The Observer - These guilty pleasures
(By)JIMMY CARR Comedian
My guilty pleasure is not a good thing. It's the generic clip show. Whether it's Tarrant on TV , or another high-paid entertainer who needs something to do, I love them. They're so bad - one up from Animals Attack, just. I draw the line at the rather large woman from Emmerdale ... I know the camera adds 10lbs, but she must have eaten lots of cameras to achieve that look. I turn on ITV at 5.30pm on a Saturday and I can be fairly sure that I'll see some funny adverts from Dasseldorf, or the like, perhaps a dog doing something very cute. The Beat the Clock game on Sky TV is also good - you get about 10 minutes close to midnight, and any more than that is unnecessary.
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26/08/02
The Telegraph "He didn't collect, but Carr's still cool and calm"
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25/08/02
The Observer (Ouch!)
Also perplexing is the fact that nobody on the panel appears to have noticed how old much of his material is - a charge that might also be laid at the door of Carr, whom I first saw when judging newcomer competitions two years ago.
Jimmy Carr divides critical and fellow comics' opinion - you either love him or loathe him - and I am in firmly in the latter camp. I'm not a violent person and am fully aware of comics assuming a stage persona, but whenever I see Carr I have to be physically restrained from smacking his smug face. Or his visage, as he would no doubt call it.
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18/08/02
The Observer "Dalai Lama must die"
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04/08/02
The Observer
(By) Jimmy Carr
Edinburgh in August is rife with meaningless sex. This is due less to genuine passion and more to the extreme nocturnal chill and the chronic bed shortage. And perhaps the licensing laws too. Diet gurus be damned - the Festival provides ample proof that chips and beer do constitute a balanced diet. Balanced on a knife edge between scurvy and liver failure, perhaps, but it's only for a month.
Jimmy Carr is appearing in Bare-Faced Ambition at the Gilded Balloon
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07/07/02
The Observer
(By) Jimmy Carr
Comedian
I've started reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (Picador £7.99), his memoir of losing his parents to cancer. I bought it last year when I lost my own mother, but found it too painful to read at the time. Now it's great to pick it up and discover that you don't have to be embarrassed about finding humour in the darkness.
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Copyright to J Ella Smith 2005, and to the original copyright holder where stated. All Rights Reserved.
-17/01/05