Naughty boy - Jim Jefferies review

Jim Jefferies. Looking surprisingly good considering his excesses

Newbury Comedy Festival: Jim Jefferies, at The Corn Exchange, Newbury, on Wednesday, July 28

JIM Jefferies is rude, crude and very, very lewd, and I thought his show might prove a bit of a challenge to an empowered female. To be honest, I didn’t expect to like him much.

I certainly didn’t expect to laugh so much, to come out of the show raving about him, and to add Jefferies to my “would actually pay to see again” list of comedy acts.

While the content of Jefferies’ show can barely be touched upon in these pages - bringing pleasure to women and undertaking an unusal favour for an old friend just about covers it - the high smut factor was tempered by an unusual warmth and fullness of heart in its telling.

While there was a large number of already-converted Jefferies followers at his Newbury Comedy Festival show, indicated by a large cheer when he asked how many of the audience had seen him before, Jefferies passed the ultimate litmus test by raising some laughs out of at least some of the brave volunteer stewards on duty.

Jefferies’ self-confessed hard-living, depression and past health problems don’t appear to have caught up with the 33-year-old Australian professionally, and despite taking two bottles of beer on to the stage with him he remained on top of his game for the entire 75 minutes. He dealt with a couple of well-lubricated hecklers slickly, while gleaning some fun out of them, and genuinely seemed to enjoy his time at The Corn Exchange.

There was one passing remark about Muslims which was inappropriate, and his thoughts about gay women being miserable while gay men are lots of fun were cliched to say the least. When you stretch boundaries, it’s hard to do so without snapping them occasionally.

In the main though, Jefferies’ show was great adult entertainment, and although he is a regular guest on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Fighting Talk, it was refreshing to watch an entire set that wasn’t already familiar from television or radio. Jefferies’ comedy isn’t good clean fun, but sometimes it’s alright to take a walk on the dark side. 

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday August 5, and on Newbury Today at http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=14165