Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer

I cannot profess to being the biggest fan of Jimmy Carr, nonetheless as his new Netflix special, Natural Born Killer was available I decided to give it a watch.

As likely as not I have not watched anything by Jimmy since his previous special His Dark Material in 2021.

Well, aside from laughing out loud around three or maybe four times, this was thin gruel, it really felt like he was trying very, very hard to be offensive and funny, and ended up being neither to any great extent.

It just did not work for me.

The show almost settles into two halves as around or just beyond the half-way point and with the aid of the audience Jimmy seems to loosen up, it becomes more fluid and is a bit funnier all be it in a comparative sense.

I felt for the audience who I presume had paid good money to see this, it felt that they just weren't that into it, maybe it was just one of those nights but this Aylesbury audience did not seem to be having the best of times.

I guess it is mildly amusing to see Jimmy's face, teeth and hair evolve over time all with the aid of modern surgery and dentistry but beyond that there is little to recommend here.

Jimmy needs to have a long hard think about his future career or there may not be much career in his future.

I am someone who follows foreign standups almost only on Netflix. Jimmy Carr has his own offensive humor. When I searched for something similar, I couldn't find it, at least not on Netflix. There was no one who gave me the feeling of "You couldn't have really said that" as much as this man. In this show, I don't know if it was Netflix, Carr's advancing age, or the current structure of society, I felt like he wasn't using his punches fully and was holding back. There were a few positive messages squeezed in that you sometimes come across in standups. I wonder if this was a Netflix commission or the artist's own choice. It made me laugh out loud in a few places, but I'd like to see a Jimmy Carr getting filthy beyond comprehension.

This stand-up special by Jimmy Carr is the first time I have not enjoyed his work. I do not mean that his jokes were not funny. On the contrary, I found much of the material to be pretty good, not his best, but pretty good. Even so, I emitted no more than a chuckle throughout the show. That is because the camera work in this is unprecedented, and not in a good way.

Every so often the camera operator would repeat a moving shot of Jimmy by coming in from the side of the stage, all in for a close-up of him talking and then continue passing all the way across in front of him, followed by circling behind him.

I found this pointless continual movement so distracting that it made me utterly lose track of the topics and not even hear what he was saying. I cannot recall ever seeing this before in any stand-up special ever, by anyone. This began early in the routine and was repeatedly used all the to the end. I found it so off-putting that the only time I laughed was when I was not actually looking at the screen.

My main emotional response was not laughter, but rather feeling bad for his audience in the theater. I wonder how they remained in a humorous mood when I can only imagine they were having their show spoiled by absurd camerawork being performed directly in their line of sight. I would love to know about why this approach was used and the chain of poor judgment that allowed it to happen. It must be utterly bizarre or tragically pathetic.

Thank you for reading this.

Brilliant comics age, just like everything else, and Jimmy Carr is a brilliant comic.

He's one of the smartest, funniest, most inventive British comics of his era, but the nature of being sharp and inventive is that it has a shelf-life. There are still flashes of the old brilliance but a lot of it feels like treading old ground. That's not to say that he can't get back to his old level of brilliance, because great comics can adapt and reinvent themselves.

The "I'm so edgy" shtick is just cringe, and pretty standard for many comics whose glory days are behind them. Just make sure you have the best material, and get on with telling the jokes. It's not the 1950's and the only people who are "offended" are newspaper columnists who are only pretending to be for adclick revenue. Truth is, most people aren't actually watching - they have their own lives to get on with.

If anyone is genuinely offensive, they won't get a Netflix special - the comic genius of Jerry Sadowitz is an example. It's tough for ageing comics but it is possible for them to revive their act. It starts with them admitting to themselves that their act needs reviving, not deluding themselves that they're an "edgy" 51 year-old.

Definitely goes over a ton of controversial subjects so will likely offend a lot of people for differing reasons. I'd say over 90% of his material can be considered offensive. He talks fast so there's a lot of jokes. I'd say 1/3 funny 1/3 decent 1/3 corny. One second I'd think he's being over the top or offensive for the shock. Then he'd do the same thing but I'd find it funny. Really tough to judge when every joke is so unique to the person hearing it. But if u don't get offended you'll find more than enough to stick through. I watched alone and lold at least a dozen times. Going into this I'd seen his other specials no more than once and always thought he was decent. This special was better than expected to me. But ya a lot of the jokes weren't huge crowd pleasers so it's hard to recommend to everyone. I also forget his old material specifically but know he's always leaned intro controversial topics so this seemed on brand for him.