Ice as Pie
Jimeoin is coming to town with his misleadingly titled new show Jimeoin On Ice, about which
Andrew P Street demands some sort of explanation
Jimeoin needs no introduction, so we won’t give him one. No, we will. He’s been one of Australia’s favourite comedians for almost two decades now – but as anyone who’s attended his live shows or seen his television shows would be aware, his comedy is wryly observational rather than darkly confessional. Hence it’s worth making clear that, despite its title, his Cracker show Jimeoin On Ice is another collection of Jimeoin’s unique observations about the world rather than a harrowing confessional about his descent into crystal meth addiction.
“You’ve nailed it in one!” he laughs. “It’s all come out into the open! Nah, it’s just a title to be perfectly honest: I don’t mention ice the drug and nor am I skating on ice during the show. But I figure if you can get a giggle out of the title then you’re onto a winner.”
Similarly, those hoping for a cast of costumed thousands will also be disappointed. “Yeah, a lot of people think it’s like the Disney thing. Channel 9 did a show on ice, I seem to remember [the short-lived Skating On Thin Ice]. I think it’s big in the UK. They have a few shows like that that we don’t really get over here, but then we don’t really have that many desperate B-grade celebrities here as they do in the UK.”
There’s subtle but genuine contempt in Jimeoin’s voice when I ask how different he finds the treatment meted out to celebrities in the UK compared with his adopted homeland. “The press treat [celebrities] like it’s some sort of gladiatorial sport. They seem to just look for mentally unstable people and then watch them fall. I couldn’t put up with it. Like Caroline Ahern [British comedy star and writer, best known for The Royle Family and The Mrs Merton Show], I think she actually lives in Sydney now. She left the UK because of the way the press treated her: it makes life not worth living. Fuck all that, you know, all the money in the world couldn’t pay for that.”
These are strong words for a man generally thought of as the epitome of the happy-go-lucky Irishman, and he confesses that it’s unusual for him to feel that strongly about… well, just about anything.
“Sometimes in an interview I feel like I’m meant to have an opinion,” he chuckles. “I like listening to what other people have to say, but in interviews I’m expected to have an opinion. To be honest, I’m grey on a lot of issues. That’s my opinion: I like to be opinionless.”
Isn’t that a liability for a comedian? After all, many base their entire schtick on an opinionated on-stage persona.
“But the fact that I don’t have an opinion is my opinion, Andrew. I grew up in Northern Ireland and I just never, ever bought into the politics of the day because everybody had the same opinion. When everyone has the same opinion, it’s the product of an affluent society,” he snorts. “You’re talking about China and Tibet while sipping your latte on the promenade somewhere nice.”
Does his opinonlessness extend to our fair city as well? “No,” he hastens to explain, “It’s really pretty. I lived in Bondi for the first two years after I came to Australia and it really blew me away. I like the topography of it, and the sea. I adore Sydney. The size is perfect; like, if you go to London it’s just saturated, it’s really just a whole lot of villages connected to one another, whereas Sydney and Melbourne [where he lives] are both cities where everybody goes to the central bit.”
Sadly the current tour won’t see Jimeoin joined by comedic foil Bob Franklin, despite the relatively recent release of the Jimeoin & Bob’s Cooking Show DVD. “Bob’s doing these other series [The Librarians and Stupid, Stupid Man]. And he plays a lot of soccer too. And I spend half my time not in this country, if not longer. But I would love to do it again: we just have to sit down for some intense writing, though, to plan a new show.”
I’m surprised to hear that, since the show always came across – to me, at least – as being wildly improvised.
“But there’s props involved, and they’re all linked so never do things out of sequence. We had a chaotic system, but a system nonetheless.”
Jimeoin – On Ice runs from Tues 6 to Sat 10 May at the Factory Theatre, Enmore, as part of the Cracker Comedy Festival.