Attending his opening show of the 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, it was important that I, for one, wasn’t starry-eyed in thinking Jimeoin would deliver his greatest ever performance. For the Irish veteran, a live set is just another tuna roll on the sushi train driven more by intuition than methodology.
The gracious undergarment aesthetic he baited from his Renonsense Man press shot didn’t see the light of day albeit aging self-pity fashioned some sort of a metaphorical substitute. Having accumulated years under his belt, an element of boredom is likely to materialise in life; for Jimeoin, this has had quirky influences on his marriage.
When social gatherings don’t become satirical glaring contests they befit jealousy tussles. Consistently surrounded by self-admittedly, more handsome men, Jimeoin alludes to the fun of using his wife’s enticement against her. Farts always seem to smell better coming from a good-looking bloke, nevertheless, he wasn’t the only one who recently ate sweet potato – wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
As previously mentioned, it’s assumed that Jimeoin doesn’t furnish his pre-show preparations engineering a script however that didn’t stop his green bible of folly from ‘suddenly’ appearing on stage. Whether it’s a jocular take on Jimeoin having a songbook or not, the crowd really grabbed the cute clumsiness of the Aussie expat stumbling through the pages absent-faced.
From one tangent to another, jollity surrounded the awkward glitch between pedestrian and motorist at the zebra crossing or stupid dancing when you’ve got nothing else to do. Then he reached for the conveniently positioned guitar and without looking at our watches, we all knew it was too early. But that was all part of the humorous goof, evoking rapturous laughter before embarrassing squirm.
From go to whoa, Jimeoin’s set invested in easy-to-understand life that ultimately sparks realisation – a trusted comedic source but not ordinarily heard from an old timer. So the humour of getting old sprung at us again yet it wasn’t repetitive but fresh and resembled Jimeoin as good as ever without striving to be spectacular.
