Lost in the British Newspaper Archives (again) I was noodling around in 2002 when I found that Jimmy appears to have decamped to Cardiff for four nights.

From January 30^th 2002 to February 2^nd, he was playing the Glee Club at Mermaid Quay, Cardiff Bay, CF10 5BZ (here). A room that can hold 450 and is still running today.

The 8pm shows were advertised as running to 2am.

The line up for the 4 evenings were:

• Jimmy Carr
• Mark Walker
• Hal Cruttenden
• Jason John Whitehead

The 31^st was a Thursday and billed as a “student comedy night”. £8.95 got you the show and a meal and students with an NUS card (National Union of Students) paid £5.50. The ads didn’t say how much tickets were for the other nights.

The venue’s History page (here) has a montage of the comics who went on to “super stardom”. Listed are Jo Brand, Jimmy Carr, Michael McIntyre, Johnny Vegas, Sarah Millican, John Bishop, Rhod Gilbert and Greg Davies. But the image also shows Reginald D Hunter, Shappi Khorsandi, Lee Evans and Joe Lycett – and lots more big names have played it since, often for WIP gigs (Work In Progress).

Who else was gigging?

On February 1^st and 2^nd there were also 8pm to 2am shows, at Jongleurs, Millennium Plaza, Cardiff. Ticket prices not mentioned and the line-up was:

• Keith Dover
• Tony Burgess
• Rick Right
• Paul Tonkinson

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 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