Jimmy Carr facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Jimmy Carr
Carr in 2015
Birth name	James Anthony Patrick Carr
Born	(1972-09-15) 15 September 1972 (age 52) London, England
Medium	Stand-up television
Nationality	United Kingdom Ireland
Education	Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA)
Years active	1997–present
Genres	Black humour blue humour satire
Partner(s)	Karoline Copping (2001–present)
Children	1

James Anthony Patrick Carr (born 15 September 1972) is a British-Irish comedian, presenter, writer, and actor. He is known for his deadpan delivery of controversial one-liners, for which he has been both praised and criticised, and his distinctive laugh. He began his comedy career in 1997, and he has regularly appeared on television as the host of Channel 4 panel shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and The Big Fat Quiz of the Year.

Early life and education

James Anthony Patrick Carr was born on 15 September 1972, in Hounslow, London, England, the second of three sons born to Irish immigrant parents Nora Mary (née Lawlor; 19 September 1943 – 7 September 2001) and Patrick James "Jim" Carr (born 1945), an accountant who became the treasurer for computer company Unisys. His parents were married in 1970 and separated in 1994, but never divorced.

Carr spent most of his early life in the village Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire, where he attended Farnham Common School and Burnham Grammar School. He completed sixth form at the Royal Grammar School in nearby High Wycombe.

In 2001 Carr's mother died of pancreatitis, aged 57. Following her death, Carr's relationship with his father became "severely strained". In 2004 his father was arrested, accused of harassing Carr and his brother Colin, but was acquitted and awarded costs. In 2021 Carr said he had not spoken to his father since 2000 and had not seen him in person, with the exception of an autograph signing after a gig in 2015.

Carr's parents remained in contact with their Irish relatives, and the family made frequent trips to Limerick and Kilkee. After earning four A grades at A-Level, Carr read social science and political science at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated with first-class honours in 1994. He went on to work in the marketing department at Shell, but took voluntary redundancy in January 2000 as he felt "miserable" there. He took a course in neuro-linguistic programming, which he has claimed helped him realise how his mind was working to hold him back from following his dreams of becoming a comedian. Within a month, he began performing stand-up. He performed his first paid stand-up gig later that month, having done his debut pub show unpaid only the previous month.

Career

Television

Hosting

Carr has hosted Channel 4 game shows Distraction and Your Face or Mine?. He presented the 100s series of programmes for Channel 4: 100 Worst Pop Records, 100 Worst Britons, 100 Greatest Cartoon Characters, 100 People Who Look Most Like Jimmy Carr (a spoof) and 100 Scary Moments.

Since 2005, Carr has presented the comedy panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats. The show aired on Channel 4 until 2016, when it moved to More4. It later went to E4. Since 2012, Carr has also presented 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, a combination of his panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats and daytime quiz show Countdown.

In April 2010, Carr hosted the first British version of a comedy roast show, Channel 4's A Comedy Roast. On 6 May 2010, he was a co-host of Channel 4's Alternative Election Night, with David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne and Charlie Brooker. He joined the three presenters again for 10 O'Clock Live, a Channel 4 comedy current-affairs show, which started airing in January 2011.

In 2014 and 2015, Carr guest-presented two episodes of Sunday Night at the Palladium on ITV. In 2018, he presented American comedy panel show The Fix on Netflix. From 2018 to 2020, Carr hosted the Comedy Central series Roast Battle.

Guest appearances

Carr contributed sketches to Channel 4 topical comedy TV programme The 11 O'Clock Show and has appeared on panel shows A League of Their Own and QI.During a guest appearance on the BBC motoring show Top Gear, Carr set a new celebrity test track lap record on the 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car' segment. He was described as "the worst driver we've ever had" and "the luckiest man alive" by Top Gear's test driver the Stig.

Carr has appeared as a contestant on celebrity editions of Deal or No Deal (won £750 for Helen & Douglas House), The Chase (won £1,000 for Variety Club), Benchmark (won £1,000 for Elton John AIDS Foundation), Tipping Point (won £7,000 for Blue Cross) Catchphrase, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, winning £1,000.

Carr was a guest presenter for one edition of Have I Got News for You; in 2007 he joined Ian Hislop's team in the edition of the show chaired by Ann Widdecombe, with whom he "flirted" outrageously. Later in the episode, Widdecombe stated, "I don't think I shall return to this programme."

Radio

In January 2006, Carr made a joke on Radio 4's Loose Ends, the punchline of which implied that Gypsy women smelled. The BBC issued an apology, but Carr refused to apologise and continued to use the joke. He appeared in two episodes of the radio series of Flight of the Conchords in 2005.

Podcasts

Carr's podcast appearances go back to at least 2010 with a one-off podcast called Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle: Meet the Comedians. Carr's podcast appearances ramped up significantly during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with recent appearances during this period including The Betoota Advocate Podcast, You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, The Comedian's Comedian, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, and Dane Baptiste Questions Everything.

Stand-up comedy

Carr performs stand-up tours continuously over most of the course of the year, taking only five weeks off between them.

In 2004, he threatened to sue fellow comedian Jim Davidson for using a joke that Carr considered his own. The matter was dropped when it became apparent that the joke in question was an old one used for decades by many different comedians. He toured the country with his show A Public Display of Affection, starting on 9 April 2005 at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury and ending on 14 January 2006 at the Gielgud Theatre in London's West End. He also appeared at the EICC during the Edinburgh Festival in August 2005 with his Off The Telly show.

In August 2006, he commenced the tour Gag Reflex, for which he won the 2006 British Comedy Award for "Best Live Stand-Up". He released his third DVD, Jimmy Carr: Comedian, in November 2007. In 2003, he was listed in the Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In 2007, a poll on the Channel 4 website for 100 Greatest Stand-Ups, Jimmy Carr was 12th. A national tour commenced in autumn 2007 named Repeat Offender, beginning at the Edinburgh Festival.

On 3 February 2007, Carr's performance in front of 50 people in London was broadcast simultaneously on the virtual platform Second Life.

His Rapier Wit tour opened on 20 August 2009 with nine shows at the Edinburgh Festival before touring the UK. He released a DVD entitled Jimmy Carr: Telling Jokes on 2 November 2009. Also in July 2009, Carr toured with Las Vegas band the Killers.

In October 2009, Carr received criticism from Sunday tabloid newspapers for a joke he made about British soldiers who had lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the UK would have a strong team in the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Carr defended his own joke as "totally acceptable" in an interview with The Guardian.

Carr's sixth Live DVD, Jimmy Carr: Making People Laugh, was released on 8 November 2010. Carr's 2010–11 tour, entitled Laughter Therapy, started with a run at the Edinburgh Festival before touring the UK.

Carr was criticised in November 2011 for a joke about the Variety Club's Sunshine coaches, which offer holidays for children with Down syndrome. The charity and Down Syndrome Education International condemned the joke. Carr defended himself by saying nothing should be off limits.

A Guardian profile in 2012 said: "In terms of reach and earning power... one of the nation's most popular stand-up comedians... in his ability to pull in crowds which generate millions in tour and DVD sales..." and as "the undisputed king of deadpan one-liners...".

Carr released the Jimmy Carr: Laughing and Joking DVD on 18 November 2013.

In June 2019, Carr was criticised for the content of his touring show Terribly Funny.

Books

In 2006 the book The Naked Jape: Uncovering the Hidden World of Jokes, on the history and theory of joke-telling, by Carr and Lucy Greeves, was published by Penguin.

Before & Laughter, a memoir and self-help book, was published by Quercus in December 2021.

Personal life

In the late 1990s, when he was 26 years old, Carr had what he calls "an early midlife crisis" during which he lost his Catholic faith. He has since made comments critical of organised religion. In 2015, he said: "As for being a Christian, yes, it seems ridiculous now, but I genuinely believed there was a big man in the sky who could grant wishes. Writers like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins helped change my view, but I don't go on stage banging on about being an atheist... I'm just a guy who tells jokes." He has stated that he underwent a lot of psychotherapy (specifically neuro-linguistic programming) at the time of his crisis in order to help him cope with his loss of faith, and that he is qualified as a therapist.

Carr has spoken of the depression he experienced in his 20s, while working in marketing, and credits his decision to pursue a comedy career in helping him to cope with depression. He has dual British and Irish citizenship, travels on an Irish passport, has spoken of his pride in having Irish ancestry, and was presented in 2013 with a certificate of Irish heritage in his parents' home city of Limerick by the city's mayor.

Carr lives in North London with his Canadian girlfriend Karoline Copping, a commissioning editor for Channel 5, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2001. Their son was born in 2019.

Awards

• Time Out Award: Best Stand Up (2002)
• Perrier Award Nomination (2002)
• Royal Television Society Award: Best On-Screen Newcomer (2003)
• LAFTA Award: Best Stand Up (2004)
• Rose D'Or Nomination: Best Presenter, Distraction (2004)
• LAFTA Award: Funniest Man (2005)
• British Comedy Award: Best Live Stand Up (2006)
• LAFTA Award: Funniest Man (2007)
• LAFTA Award: Best Stand Up (2008)
• LAFTA Award: Loaded Legend (2011)

Works

Tours

Comedy specials

Filmography

Film

Television

Guest appearances

Books

• 2004, Distraction Quiz Book (foreword)
• 2006, with Lucy Greeves, The Naked Jape: Uncovering the Hidden World of Jokes (UK), or Only Joking: What's So Funny About Making People Laugh (USA)
• 2021, Before & Laughter: A Life-Changing Book

Discography

• = (Ed Sheeran, 2021) – backing vocals on "Visiting Hours"

See also

In Spanish: Jimmy Carr para niños