‘I used to be afraid of the dark. Yesterday, I got my electricity bill. Now I’m afraid of the light’. One more: ‘I went to the solicitor’s and said: “I want to make a will”. He said: “Fine, leave it to me”. I said: “But I hardly know you”.
No one felt uncomfortable watching Jimmy. His humour was, in the words of television producer John Fisher, ‘underpinned by a warmth and kindness that is rare in comedy today’
These are just two jokes by the late Jimmy Cricket, the Northern Irish comedian who died yesterday, aged 80. Jimmy’s death has left me feeling profoundly sad. Sad for Jimmy, his beloved wife of 52 years ‘Lady’ May, and his dear family, but also about the way comedy has changed in recent years.
We used to have the balance just right. There were always ‘blue’ comedians, comedians who were ‘near the mark’, comedians who swore, comedians who loved to shock. But don’t we have too much of that nowadays? And not enough of the old-school comics who just simply wanted to make us laugh and not lecture us? Jimmy Cricket’s humour, with its blend of clever word play and hilarious visual gags, never set out to cause offence. This ironically made him quite ‘alternative’ in the current climate, where offending people is seen (wrongly) as the essence of good comedy.
