Australian stand-up Jim Jeffries is the kind of comic who isn’t afraid to tackle taboo subjects – but some people fail to see the funny side. At a gig in Manchester last year, for example, one Irish audience member took exception to Jeffries’ reply to a female heckler, and promptly stormed onstage and punched him.
This resulted in a mini-brawl, as other members of the crowd rushed to Jeffries’ defence, and security personnel arrived on the scene in an attempt to restore some order to proceedings. The incident has been viewed well over 100,000 times on Youtube, and sealed Jeffries’ status as one of the most controversial comedians on the UK circuit.
“People can get angry,” says Jeffries, matter-of-factly. “That’s the only time it’s ever happened to me, although I have seen glasses and bottles being thrown at other comedians. There was no real warning that it was going to happen, but I was quite touched by the audience members who stuck up for me.
“With regard to it being an Irish person, hopefully I’ll enjoy a more friendly reaction when I go over there for my show! I’ve actually been many times, both as a tourist and as a performer. I’ve probably played around 20 times in Ireland. I love it there.”
Jeffries began performing as a stand-up in 2000, having been inspired to get into comedy by the likes of Richard Pryor and Billy Connolly (whom he saw on multiple occasions in Australia whilst working as an usher in a theatre). He has enjoyed a very successful career, earning a devoted cult following, landing coveted support slots with big name comics like Dennis Leary, and appearing on shows such as Have I Got News For You and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
On one of Jeffries’ appearances on the latter programme, the guest host was none other than Jeremy Clarkson. How did he get on with the Top Gear presenter?
“He was a sound guy,” enthuses Jeffries. “He was quite nervous before he went out there, which I found interesting, because he’s meant to be this really arrogant, flash kind of guy. He wasn’t paralysed with anxiety, exactly, but he was quite wary that he had to be properly funny now, not just interesting. But he handled it really well, he was very funny. I found him to be a really charming bloke.”
Jim also appeared on NMTB alongside Trisha Goddard, whose daytime ITV talk-show was the last word in low-brow entertainment until the arrival of Jeremy Kyle.
“Trisha’s not a bad looking woman,” opines Jeffries. “Unfortunately, she didn’t really get along with me. A funny thing happened, that I think the Irish get as well. It’s like when you travel to America and every fucker you meet is telling you that they’re Irish. Well, Trisha kept saying to me, ‘I’m Australian’, because her husband’s Australian and she has an Australian passport.
“But she’s not Australian just because she let some fuckin’ Australian bloke’s spunk up her, you know what I mean? I basically said that to her in the make-up room, like, ‘That hardly makes you Australian’. Also, she was on the other team during the show, and I did a slightly misogynistic joke, and she goes, ‘Is that how the show is going to be all day?’ And I just went, ‘This is how it’s going to be over here, you can do what the fuck you want over there’.”
Elsewhere, Jim’s appearance on Have I Got News For You saw him express his affection for the episode’s guest presenter, former BBC news anchor Moira Stuart.
“I got quite flirty with Moira,” recalls Jeffries. “I’m the first person ever to call Moira Stuart ‘a goer’. She’s good for a laugh; she’s got a cheeky smile and she’ll wink at you. She was very funny in that episode of Extras – the one at the BAFTAs where Ronnie Corbett was taking the drugs, and in the end it turned out that Moira was the drug dealer. It was great.”
Jim has also appeared on Big Brother’s Big Mouth and Big Brother’s Little Brother, although it turns out that he encountered BB contestant Chanelle Hayes in quite a different context.
“I was playing Premier League Allstars football,” he remembers, “and I thought, ‘She’s a smashing looking bird in the flesh’. But then last week, I’m doing the Top 100 Break-Ups on television, and I get to talk about Ziggy and Chanelle breaking up. I said, ‘Chanelle, if you’re watching, MySpace me, I’ll go out with you any time’. And then as I was going to leave, it turns out Chanelle is the next person they’re interviewing. She was standing about five metres away listening.
“I was like, ‘Did you hear that?’ She went, ‘Yeah’. I said, ‘Well, MySpace me’ and walked off. She hasn’t contacted me yet.”
In the past, Jim has made jokes that have touched on any number of sensitive topics, from cancer and disability to September 11, and while he admits that his act is “not for everyone”, he still regards some of the more outraged reactions amongst audience members as being somewhat excessive.
“Even if you don’t like it, there’s no use getting angry or upset about it,” he says. “There’s plenty of comedy that I think is mundane and shit, and I sit there in clubs, keep my mouth shut and just wait for it to end. If you’re worried because I do a disease joke or a paedophilia joke, all of these things are done on television.
“Family Guy does these jokes. Borat, the most popular comedy of all time now, has several really poor homosexual jokes, but I didn’t hear too many people expressing outrage. There’s something about a live performer that does something to people, when it’s really just the same.
“If you do a joke about AIDS or cancer, people get really upset. But if you make a joke about gout or hepatitis, no one will have a problem with it, because people are inherently selfish. They only care for the problems that affect them directly. It’s weird – whenever someone comes up to me and is offended by a joke I’ve said, I never know what they’re about to say next. It’s always a different joke. I can’t actually police it.”