This early gig was at The Picturedrome, 222 Kettering Road, Northampton, NN1 4BN, on December 5^th 2000. This pub is still functioning (here) and opened in 1912 (couple of nice pictures in this page about its history).

Searching for the room’s capacity the results say 350 but looking at this interior shot – I’d say more like 100, with the comedy show layout. Hard to tell 26 years later.

British Newspaper Archives have a story from the Northampton Chronical and Echo, mainly relating to the headliner: Brendon Burns.

An Australian comedian (working in the UK) he’s a year older than Jimmy and has also appeared in the 11 O’Clock Show (here, re Jimmy) and Paul Provenza’s Green Room (here, re Jimmy). That’s where their careers took differing turns as Brendon, although still touring, has around 50k+ social followers, compared to Jimmy’s 20m+.

That’s not intended to be disrespectful to Brendon. I am just fascinated by people that start out in comedy, at the same time, and yet the one at the top of the bill doesn’t manage to push on and develop a bigger audience, despite getting a lot of great reviews in the early days.

This article says that Brendon had travelled the world and appeared on The Stand Up Show (BBC1) and Gas (C4).

This gig was the monthly Comedy Club and the Press Officer suggested NOT sitting near the front, as you risked getting picked on. He didn’t specify who would be doing the “picking” so presumably any of the comics.

Doors opened at 7.30pm and tickets were priced at £5. The line-up was:

• Brendon Burns
• Jason John Whitehead (described as “a Canadian with many television credits”)
• Jimmy Carr (described as “a former psychotherapist, deadpan comic confessing his middle-class tendencies”)

For more about the “psychotherapy” label – see here.

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