New page is now visible (here) called:

The Year 1999

Jimmy had started his comedy career in 1998 (here) and so, in 1999, he would have been hanging out backstage and watching the performances of all the people on the circuit with him. They would have been exchanging notes and car sharing and, from interviews that I’ve listened to, thoroughly enjoying colleagues that bombed.

The page contains:

1. A list of the names of Circuit Comedians that I am seeing in 1999 newspaper adverts. Some may have only tried out once, some may still be slogging around the UK. A handful went on to have greater success (including on TV) and they are highlighted.
2. Comedy TV and Radio – British Comedy Guide have a page that links to their database of pages and pulls forward UK TV comedy shows that were showing in 1999. Many of them featured contemporaries who were further along their career route.
3. Venues – a fairly short list of the venues that were having weekly or monthly comedy nights, in 1999.

Now that it’s there – I’ll add to it when I find anything new.

I’m not going to attempt to do this for many years but thought it would be interesting background to his early career.