The Guy Butler Theatre is huge. Hundreds of people swarming to see Jimeoin on Ice were directed by some very competent air-traffic controller types who’d occasionally yell “Who doesn’t know where to go?”
This was like a siren song to confused drifters, with small relieved voices going “Me! That’s me! I don’t know where to go!”
I didn’t see a single empty seat – I turned around and even the gallery looked like a Florida-bound boat chockers with illegal immigrants. Grinning their heads off. Waiting for the laughter they have been promised and paid good money for.
How the hell does someone walk out onto a stage, alone, to confront that hungry beast and manage to locate their sense of humour? And not only that, but deviate from the prepared stuff and ad-lib and be good at it?
He referred to this, noting the audience was weirdly quiet between jokes. “A bottomless joke-eating machine: More jokes” (gruff monster voice).
But stand-up comedy at this level is a serious skill. He does deliver, and it’s quite something. I watched as the man sitting diagonally in front of me went from laughing to shrieking and into a kind of convulsion that looked sort of dangerous.
I think that even if stand-up is not really your thing you will laugh. You can’t help it, he’s a pro. I walked out exhausted. And my tummy muscles hurt today.

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