In Iraq

From his 2010 DVD Alcoholocaust

More Jim Jefferies videos

Born in Perth, Western Australia, Jim Jefferies trained as an opera singer before turning to stand-up. He has appeared in festivals across the world as well as TV stand-up shows. In 2007, he was punched on stage at the Manchester Comedy Store, and the video of the incident became a worldwide hit o the internet.

He supported Dennis Leary at the new York comedy festival the same year; and the following year landed a pilot sitcom with Paramount Comedy. He was nominated for best headliner in the 2008 Chortle awards.

He was born Jeffries but had to add an 'e' to hs surname to avoid confusion with an American performer of the same name.

Jim Jefferies: Alcoholocaust
Live Review
Lyric Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue

Jim Jefferies has earned himself a reputation for being fiercely offensive; an image the straight-talking Australian is happy to foster, playing up the alluring persona of a hard-drinking rock and roll comic trampling over society’s niceties.

Indeed, in the opening minutes of Alcoholocaust, his new show heading to Edinburgh next week and recorded for DVD release at London’s Lyric Theatre last night, the 33-year-old mimes sucking cock, brands all lesbians as humourless and launches a misogynistic tirade that doesn’t even attempt to hide behind a veil of irony. Later we get an off-colour, but admittedly funny, routine about Auschwitz, while on the language front, his cpm – cunts per minute – count is almost off the scale.

He performs the show in front of a logo comprising two back-to-back scripted Js, the flourishes of the letters forming what could be mistaken, aptly enough, for demonic rams’ horns behind his head. The hard-edged, uncomplicated foul-mouthed rants are, however, done with a sense of playfulness, and act as a way of establishing that this is a show without boundaries. And once this is understood, he reveals himself to be an evocative storyteller, showing that behind all the brutal bluster is a comic with heart.

He has a stab at being an intellectually provocative act, too – although his atheist outlook is all-too familiar on the circuit -– if not in God-fetished America where Jefferies now spends most of his time as he attempts to crack Hollywood. In a crowded field of non-believers, his arguments seem over-familiar, where his personal take on morality isn’t that far removed from Bill & Ted’s ‘Be excellent to each other’.

Yet his strength isn’t in such pseudo-thoughtful posturing, but in revealing his humanity. He mentions in passing that he suffers depression -– and there’s probably a future show in that – and confesses that too dependent on booze, vowing to quit after the Edinburgh Fringe, a tall order given that he can’t even stop for the 70 or so minutes he’s on stage. Then there’s his yarn about entertaining the troops in Iraq, in which he’s not afraid to appear stomach-churningly terrified by situations that the soldiers consider everyday.

His coup de grace, though, is his extended final routine. It’s a section that involves hookers, the seriously disabled and bodily excretions – yet still manages to be touchingly life-affirming. It’s a tale which Jefferies promises he hasn’t embellished in the slightest and concerns his childhood friend Dan, who is seriously disabled by muscular dystrophy. At 33, he’s way beyond his life expectancy and needs help with the simplest of tasks, so when he asked to be taken to a brothel to lose his virginity, the events are pretty much guaranteed to make an unforgettable tale.

And Jefferies tells it expertly, with no sense of exploitation or sentimentality, but the sort of matter-of-factness in which any story of a lads’ night out might be told. He draws out the humour of the extreme situation without ever going for cheap laughs, demonstrating a maturity and depth that the ‘offensive comic’ tag he’s saddled with could never hope to cover. He is offensive… but he’s so much more besides.

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Anyone who was at the Jim Jefferies gig's at Inverness, was in for a treat. He managed two shows on the same night (due to ticket demand). He didn't disappoint - from the start he just took the audience along on an extremely humorous anecdotal journey. He's a rare comedian who can weave in expletive's in his material that seem to enhance the stories he regales to his audience not detract from them. Like some naughty half pissed schoolboy boosting what he's been up to during the summer vacation to his friends. You could see he was enjoying himself on stage and threw open - any questions to the audience, received and answered them in his inimitable Aussie manner. He would have kept going if not for the second show, as it was he did more than an hour thirty and still firing on all cylinders comedy wise. All the plaudits that come his way are well founded. Most definitely a must see comedian. He surprised even me.

Douglas Thomson, November 2010

Saw Alcoholocaust in Edinburgh and came out totally hating the man. I wasn't offended by his jokes, just bored by them. He seems to think that simply saying cunt and being sexist are hilarious - they can be but they need at least a modicum of thought and a hint of actual writing or structure. I have no idea how he gets good reviews, maybe I saw him on a bad night but I couldn't believe an act so devoid of humour, wit or intelligence can be so lauded. I hate this man.

Jo, August 2010

By far the best comedian on the planet right now. His turn of phrase is amazing, he is very intelligent and makes you laugh so hard it hurts!!

Jeremy Rowland, March 2010

Jim Jeffries is the best comedian in this country at the moment, He is completely offensive, but there are subtle hints of Bill Hicks in the humour. I think the man is a direct response to the over indulgent politcally correct world we live in, where even rape is thought to be offensive, not the sensual love we know it is.

murphy, October 2008

Saw him at Late and Live and he was dreadful. Completely pissed which didn't help and set completely lacked structure or jokes. Even his bantering with the audience was mediocre.

Karen, August 2008

Very brave, Very funny! If you are offended you obviously haven't been listening and have just picked out words and rearranged them at your own will, startlingly funny, think Brendon Burns after being punched in the face.

Ben Mumford, August 2008

Ought to be offensive, but I was too busy laughing to care. Pretty damn hilarious.

Michael Monkhouse, July 2008

The funniest act I've ever seen. I've seen his show about twenty times and I still piss meself.

sloaney, March 2008

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