Another venue Jimmy has performed at is The Comedy Cellar, South Park Hills Centre, Ringmead, Bracknell, RG12 7PA.

The venue started in 1986 and lays claim to being the “longest running UK comedy club outside of London”. It is still going strong and has a slightly strange website (here) with a rather pointless menu, where all the links just point you at the home page. It looks nice – but why have all of those menu items?

Stars that have played there include Jimmy Carr, Joe Wilkinson, Alan Davies, Jo Brand, Harry Hill, Eddie Izzard, Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves, Graham Norton, Bill Bailey, Al Murray, Lucy Porter, Micky Flanagan, Russell Howard, Omid Djalili, Greg Davies, Milton Jones, Sarah Millican, Joe Lycett, Ed Gamble, Katherine Ryan and Jack Whitehall.

There are more details of the club’s background and performers in this 30^th anniversary article. The mention of “launching the careers of many in the industry” is slightly hyperbolic, as a statement, as it doesn’t say who “the many” may be. With Jimmy, for example, the only gig that I can find there (for him) is 2002 and by then he’d been going since 1998. There may have been earlier, undocumented, appearances there – but this venue wasn’t where he “launched”.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, from researching comedy, it’s that anything goes when you are promoting something. If ONE critic says you are the UK’s “greatest ever comedian” – that’s what’s going on your tour poster. Once you’ve noticed it happening you spot it all over the place.

The Comedy Cellar gigs are located in The Cellar Bar, which seats around 100. This is not your usual comedy circuit pub (complete with sticky carpets) as you can see from this image. It may not be a large room – but it’s a bit more up market than others on the circuit.

Friday February 15^th 2002

Jimmy’s gig, at the Comedy Cellar, was with Ian Stone and ticket prices were £7 or £7.50 on the door. No further details to be found.

Who else was gigging?

Only two other performances, for Saturday 16^th, popped up:

First was Ha Bloody Ha putting on Jim Tavar, Chris Lynam and Jeff Innocent at Chiswick Town Hall. Starting at 8.45pm tickets were £8. It doesn’t say whether the £5 tickets were on the door or concessionary.

And the second gig noticed was at Turks Head, Winchester Road where the Bearcat Comedy Club was charging £8 / £7 to see Milton Jones, Sean Meo, Gordon Southern and Steve Rawlings. Doors opened 8.15pm.

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