And now he is following in the footsteps of another legendary funny Irishman, Dave Allen, and making it big in the UK after making it big in Oz.
“Yes, oh my god,” he says, getting excited when one of his comedy heroes is mentioned. “I only discovered that on a TV show recently. This guy told me that Dave Allen broke through in Australia then went to the UK. I think Australians like Irish accents. I’ve heard that people go to comedy clubs when they hear an irish comedian is on even if they don’t know them.”
He does not, however, see a great similarity to Allen in terms of material: “He did set-pieces and really strong stories. I don’t talk about politics and religion, but if I could have got his angle on it I’d have done it.”
“I just talk about the things that tickle me,” he says modestly. With the arena-filling rise of the likes of Michael McIntyre, Micky Flanagan and Jason Manford, the world seems to have caught up with Jimeoin’s “have you ever noticed?” observational take on behaviour. “Observational? I didn’t know it had a name to it,” he laughs. “The fact that it became popular was because it was what most people found funny. People connect with it on an emotional level.”
The challenge is coming up with new jokes all the time. “Sometimes I come up with something that seems so obvious I can’t believe it has never been done before.” He likes to keep it family-friendly too and rarely swears: “I don’t swear much offstage so it would be odd swearing onstage.”
His current tour will be a mix of his latest show with some classic routines thrown in for new fans who have discovered him through his recent TV appearances or the internet. The older fans like to hear them again too, he quickly points out. “You’ll always get someone shouting out ‘do the eyebrows bit!’”
Having a career on opposite sides of the world involves about five trips a year to the UK. He travels economy, collecting his air miles and treating himself to business class when he has enough points. But the journey is no major strain for him: “I used to get the bus from London to Northern Ireland and that is 16 hours, so the flight isn’t much longer.” He has no plans to move over here though. With his TV appearances filmed on his visits and aired later and clips available on YouTube he doesn’t need to base himself here to attract an audience.
TV back home also keeps him there. He branched out last year hosting a nightly World Cup special called The Full Brazilian: “I did 25 live shows over 28 days in primetime. The learning curve was very steep trying to be chirpy for that long. Very different to stand-up, but great fun doing it.”
The fact that Jimeoin was chosen to host such a high profile show underlines how famous he is over there. It must be odd that he cannot sit in a Melbourne pub without fans buying him drinks. “From the age of 25 I’ve been very well known there. It’s a nice break in the UK. When I’m on tour I like to visit medieval cathedrals. I’ve got a great collection of pictures of me in front of churches.” I suspect that the way his career is going it would not be surprising if his fans over here will soon be taking pictures of him.
Jimeoin is currently touring thr UK and then tours Australia. Details here.
Picture by Jim Penlidis
