November 5^th 2000 and the Jimmy was foregoing fireworks for a night at Peterborough’s Gaslight Comedy Club. He’d previously been there in July for the New Act of The Year Award – where he had been described as “the future of comedy” (see here).

The Venue

The Gaslight Comedy Club was held in The Tara Suite, above The Solstice, Northminster Road, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 1YN.

If the below seems slightly muddled…I’ve been through about 30 websites / Facebook posts, pulling out random facts and comments.

The Gaslight started around 1983 (but not necessarily at this address, it moved a couple of times) and was described (here) as having been the longest running comedy club outside London. Comedy nights were usually on a Sunday and big-name comics were said to be attracted by the location (they could get a late train back to London).

I’ve seen mention of Jack Dee, Hal Cruttenden (2005), Jo Brand, Alan Davies, Jeremy hardy and Milton Jones having also made appearances there.

The building occupied by Solstice apparently used to be an ex-serviceman’s club and opened as a pub and comedy venue in 1997 (eventually morphing into a nightclub). There’s a picture of the building’s outside here.

Just as a slight side note – I’ve seen entries from TripAdvisor Australia, LickList and Yelp!, advertising nights out here, as if it’s still open. Unfortunately, COVID finished the business off (story here) and Solstice was demolished in 2022. Just goes to show…you can’t trust t’internet!

And another piece of UK comedy history bites the dust.

Jimmy’s Gig – 5^th November 2000 (Sunday)

Now we’ve established the “where” – what about the gig?

A couple of articles in the British Newspaper Archives tell us that the headliner was Steve Hughes, an Australian comedian that was also a host on MTV. He was described as headlining “all the major comedy clubs down under”.

November 5^th was “the Gaslight Anniversary Special” to celebrate 3 years of being at the Tara Suite, above Solstice.

The Peterborough Advertiser descriptions for the people involved in the evening were:

• David Connor – resident compere (on hand to look at topical things and goings on in Fenland)
• Steve Hughes – headlining, over here for his first UK tour
• Shappi Khorsandi – Britain’s only Iranian female comic
• Jimmy Carr – a hot tip for the millennium

The ticket price wasn’t mentioned, doors opened at 7.30pm.

Background

At this stage in his career Jimmy, having performed his first gigs in late 1998, was still performing above pubs and “going on stage after strippers” (his words) or entering comedy competitions.

There was no tour name at this point. Just driving up and down the UK, sometimes doing 2-3 venues a night.

There is a page (here) about the UK Comedy Circuit