2020 was the start of Jimmy’s Terribly Funny tour and that tour overview post is in progress (coming soon).
In this first lockdown post I’ve covered the issues of the beginning of the “lockdown periods” up to August 31st. If you’ve not seen it – that’s probably where you should being.
I think he managed around 70+ shows in the first 8 months – and then things went downhill as it was only around 20 in the final 4. Like most other performers he had to acknowledge his addiction to “the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd”.
He did have other projects on the go – he’d started The Little Tiny Quiz of Lockdown in March (here), was busy writing Before and Laughter (here) and became a father. But performers want to perform and so gigs were set up and repeatedly cancelled.
I was not impressed, that year, when I had had tickets for ages to see him at our City Hall. It was moved back over a year (at a very late stage) because the local Council wanted to use the venue as a vax centre. It would have seemed more logical to me to use a sports hall – but, there you go.
I won’t list all of the gigs – just enough to give you an overview of the ups and downs of the final months of 2020. These are the shows that I either had pictures or text for, that could give you a taste of how things were, in the UK.
Swansea, Wales
2020 saw I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here having to relocate from the Australian jungle to a castle in Wales (here). Jimmy had played to 1,000 people Swansea on September 1st and, when it came to filming the Big Fat Quiz of the Year in December, one of Jimmy’s intro lines was:
“This year’s I’m A Celebrity was held in Wales. The contestants had to endure foul smelling unsanitary conditions, awful food, and disgusting creepy crawlies. Then they left the hotel in Swansea and headed to location.”
NED London
On the 6th he played a rooftop gig for NED London. There must have been all of 20-25 people there, but needs must.
JLA show
On the 21st he was in a studio to do a virtual show for JLA – here.
Athens, Greece
On the 22nd September whatever rules that we had in place at the time meant he could fly to Greece. He performed a 9pm show at the Alsos Theater in Athens. When that quickly sold out a 2nd one was added on the 23rd. Tickets were €15-40.
Brighton Beach
September 27th was the Warren Outdoor Festival on Brighton Beach (he’d already been there on August 8th – image from Aug on here).
Clapham Grand
The Clapham Grand got 2 shows a night on September 28th and 29th (and also on October 1st and 5th). Beyond the Joke had a list of the Sept-Nov events – which included Jimmy and Russell Howard. The Telegraph reviewed one of the gigs (here) and quoted Jimmy as saying:
“I didn’t know how much I loved it until I couldn’t do it for six months – it’s weird when I’m sincere!”
At the time there were Save Live Comedy campaigns, petitions and events and this PLSN article has an article with an image of how they’d had to rip out seating in the 1,300 seater venue, to take it down to 380. Sacrilege.
In another interview the venue manager referred to “inconsistent and incoherent Government messaging”. A curfew was in force and their 3am licence was rendered useless as they had to close the bars at 10pm.
Leamington Spa
He performed 2 shows at Leamington’s The Assembly on the 3rd of October. To try and comply with one of the many, MANY idiotic rules at the time – the audience had plastic screens between them. Because (sarcasm alert), when you breath out virus particles, they CANNOT possibly rise above a 4-5 foot high piece of plastic…
Worthing
On December 4th he played Worthing’s Pavilion Theatre. You can see in the image below how spaced out the seating was.
Portsmouth
His final gigs of the year were down in Portsmouth, at the Guildhall, on December 16th and 17th.
TV Shows
Of course, in between all of this he also managed to fit in some TV shows. The hardest working man in comedy needed to stay busy and in front of the cameras.
Not all of the shows released in 2020 were actually filmed in 2020 – but the ones below are the ones that I think were filmed at some time, within this year.
- Blankety Blank – Xmas special – here
- C4 Goes Back to…The 2010s – here
- The Last Leg – US Elegtion Special 2020 (yes, that’s spelt correctly)
- Peeping Behind The Curtain – Micky Flanagan – here
- Save Our Summer – here
- Big Fat Quiz of the Year
- Rolling In It – here
- QI Quiet – here
- QI Quills
- The One Show – episode on August 28th
- This Morning – episode on April 8th, via Zoom – here
- 8 Out of 10 Cats – several episodes of S22
I don’t think 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown actually filmed any this year. Some episodes were shown, in the UK, during 2020 – but they had been recorded in 2019.
Coming soon…details of 2021…
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