To put July 2002 into perspective – Jimmy had been to Edinburgh in 2001 (Rubbernecker) and would return again in August 2002 (with his solo show – Bare Faced Ambition), but was mainly still playing the pub and club circuit.

He packed a bag and took off for Montreal, Canada, to the Just For Laughs Festival (aka JFL or Juste pour rire). JFL was founded in 1983 and, for many years, was the biggest international comedy festival in the world. See HaHaHa.com for the history.

JFL 2002 ran from July 11^th to 21^st and the Brits that headed out there included:

• Jimmy Carr
• Dara O’Briain
• Omid Djalili
• Ed Byrne
• Al Murray (as the Pub Landlord)
• Colin Murphy
• Karl Minns

Dara had such a “good Montreal” that he was invited to be on a televised show with Joan Rivers. And Omid received a lot of praise for his set – but hasn’t really maintained the momentum of an upward trajectory.

The Britcom show apparently featured Al Murray, Jimmy Carr, Omid Djalili and Karl Minns but, for the most part, very little online information remains for such an old festivl.

At this stage in his career Jimmy wasn’t involved in the Nasty Show and Roast battles were not yet a thing. There is a picture though of him with Dwight Slade, Eddie Brill and Patrice O’Neal. Hanging out with a table of US comics kind of shows what JFL is all about – networking, seeing other people’s shows, talking shop and swapping ideas.

Background

At some point in 2002 Jimmy launched his first “named” tour: Bare Faced Ambition (here).

There is a Chortle Review of the tour (here) that is dated Jan 1^st 2002, which I suspect is inaccurate as the earliest mention of the tour name that I’ve seen was a WIP gig that July. That would make more sense as his first couple of tours were usually launched at the Edinburgh Fringe in August.

He was still performing at places like Up The Creek and Balham’s Banana Cabaret, but also doing a lot of comedy festivals too, across all corners of the UK. These festivals included Edinburgh (here) and Canada’s JFL (here).

Plus, he got to make his first business trips to the US – going twice to New York to appear on Conan (here).

• See all 2002 posts under this tag.
• UK Comedy Circuit information – here
• Pubs & Clubs 2002 – here