This 29-minute interview is one of my favourite ever and is conducted by Andrew Clover, backstage at the EICC (Edinburgh International Conference Centre), during the Edinburgh Fringe.

The 2010 Fringe ran from the 6^th to the 30^th August and Jimmy was there, for the 9^th time (9^th time with a proper show, that is) with his tour Laughter Therapy. He was in the process of ditching the Rapier Wit tour material and was still figuring out how to make the Laughter Therapy show work (as he mentioned in this video).

The venue can hold up to 2,000 people and he was there on August the 21^st / 22^nd and then every night from the 24^th to 29^th (8 nights in total). He says this is his 8^th night so this record would be pre show on the 29^th August.

He’d been to see Bo Burnham earlier and then on to see Josie Long. He’d got a cab to the EICC and was fitting in the interview around doing his show prep for that night. Which is the part that I love – seeing behind the curtain. When I heard about Backstage With Katherine Ryan (Amazon Prime show) THIS was the kind of thing that I had been hoping for.

I’m assuming this is quite late as it was mentioned that Rhod Gilbert had “just come off”. Rhod was doing his show The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst and this BGC article notes that Rhod’s show started at 8pm.

A couple of minutes into this interview Jimmy gets a text from his Tour Manager to let him know that the stage is clear, for him to go and make sure that his notes / water etc. are where he wants them.

Laughter Therapy was a show where he was working with some visual animation and he mentions that he was trying to keep the show interesting for himself by introducing more audience interaction to the Edinburgh show. Mentioning that he does around 220 gigs on the year and that this show’s format includes audience heckle play (crowd work).

Some comments underneath the video, about the guy liner. He has quite deep-set eyes and, for many years, used it to try and make his eyes more visible. As with TV appearances many people on stage resort to make up because of how badly the lighting washes facial features out.

Calm and polite, although he’s soon about to perform, he takes the interview in his stride and lets Andrew follow him to his sound check and film from beside the stage, before they head back to the dressing room to finish off their chat.

When Jimmy mentions that it makes things kind of magical if the audience makes him laugh too, Andrew coins his laugh the “honk of happiness”. What’s nice is that, even now, his audience loves it when he does his unique laugh and will often cheer, applaud and join in.

We all need more honks of happiness in our life.