In 2023 Jimmy’s old mate, Jim Jefferies, appeared on Have a Word pod #215, below. Jim (an Australian) had lived and worked in the UK for 10 years, when he was in his 20s (see this 2019 TNT magazine interview) and so is very familiar with the UK and our comedians and venues.

Background first – in April 2007 Jim was playing The Comedy Store in Manchester. There’s a wobbly video (here) of someone jumping on stage and punching him in the head. The full story of what happened is here on Chortle.

In this podcast, at around 1 hour 12, he tells the story above and how Michael McIntyre was watching it on a monitor backstage. I’ll let you watch the video.

This then leads into another story about how he was hanging out with Jimmy at Netflix is a Joke Fest in LA (2022 – here). Jim got to meet Chappelle for the first time as Jimmy was opening for Dave at the Hollywood Bowl (April 30^th 2022) and also on May 3^rd, the night someone jumped on stage with a weapon (see here) to try and assault Dave.

Jim says that they went (with Dave) to a Busta Rhymes concert and mentions that Jimmy had his briefcase with him.

Again, watch the video. Jim tells it better than I can (although he drops the C bomb more than I).

Just a bit of background on that briefcase part, though – at festivals like this Jimmy is often there to do business, as well as performing / watching comedy shows and having fun with friends. I’ve seen tons of pics and video of him chasing from venue to venue, meeting people for brunch, doing podcasts and TV shows or going to industry talks. And you can’t keep going back to your hotel to drop your briefcase off.

This approach to networking is reflected in Jimmy being at the Ted Sarandos brunch events at Netflix  2022 and 2024…as the only Brit.

The Netflix festival is every 2 years but, unfortunately, Jimmy’s Australian tour commitments means he can’t make it this year (it runs May 4^th to 10^th). I’ve just browsed this year’s events and a LOT of big names are missing.