A couple of old gigs, from Jimmy’s first full year in comedy.

Friday December 3rd 1999 saw him performing in The Room, Orange Tree Pub, 45 Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 2NQ. I’m not sure what it looked like 27 years ago – but it looks nice now (here).

The show started at 8.30pm and tickets were £6 – with the first 10 telephone bookings getting in for half price!

This room apparently can hold about 60 people so, at the very most, £360 on the door, for the venue. Ignoring bar take that was £360 across 5 comics and a compere – plus all the usual overheads for staff, heat, light, cleaners etc. You do wonder how they could afford to keep going.

The line-up tonight, put on by The Laughing Club, was:

• Paul Zerdin
• Shelagh Martin
• Jimmy Carr
• Steve Riley
• Steve Day
• Compere – Ian The Poet

It wasn’t Jimmy’s first time appearing at this pub and you can see all Orange Tree posts – here. He’d also made appearances on December 18^th and 22^nd (here) and was back again on Christmas Eve.

The hardest working man in comedy was also working on Friday December 24^th 1999. It was a £10 / 7pm evening, again put on by The Laughing Club. Tonight’s line-up was:

• Martin Beaumont
• Jimmy Carr
• Shappi Khorsandi
• Peter Tennant
• Compere – Alfie Joey

Shappi and Paul Chowdhry have talked recently about an early gig, with Jimmy, in the podcast linked in this post. They weren’t talking about this venue (as Paul wasn’t present) but this is currently the earliest date that I’ve found Shappi and Jimmy on the same stage.

Who else was gigging?

I love these old newspaper listings as you get such a great overview of who else was around and about. This same venue, on Saturday December 4^th, was charging £7 entrance, but again offered half price to the first 10 phone bookings.  This 8.30pm show featured:

• Rob Hitchmough
• Shelagh Martin
• Greg Burns
• Shappi Khorsandi
• Tom Nicholls

Background

At this stage in his career Jimmy was just performing above pubs and “going on stage after strippers” (his words) so there was no tour name yet. Just driving up and down the UK, sometimes doing 2-3 venues a night, trying to get spots on open nights.

He’d only started comedy in late 1998 (here) so, by this point, had given up his job at Shell and was getting paid gigs (although not always enough to cover his petrol money).

There is a page (here) about the UK Comedy Circuit, which includes a list of old venues. And Pubs & Clubs 1998-2001 (here) lists his early gigs, as I find them.

There is another page (here) for The Year 1999. It lists everyone that I can confirm were on the circuit with him, plus which comics were on TV / Radio that year.