Jim Jeffries: Hammered

Review by Tom Hackett | 13 Aug 2008

"A lot of female reviewers have been giving me two stars," Jim Jeffries exclaims, after an hour that has chiefly consisted of misogynistic musings on miserable mothers, fat chicks and sluts. It's a clever attempt to defang his critics, suggesting as it does that that no one would review him badly unless they were personally outraged or offended. This (male) reviewer was neither of these things; for the most part, he was just a bit bored.

This is outrage comedy at its most pre-packaged and predictable. Every member of the audience knows exactly what they've paid for, because the terms 'offensive' and 'taboo-breaking' are splashed across the posters. Jeffries seems to work through a checklist of topics that he knows will induce the shocked guffaws the audience demand: he starts with a rape anecdote, moves on to religion-bashing and borderline racism, then settles on tired old clichés about women, most of which would have been thought only passably amusing in the working men's clubs of the '70s.

It's a shame, because Jeffries is a talented and confident performer, with a few genuinely inventive ideas up his sleeve. There’s a fun section that imagines how small everyone in the Bible must have been, conjuring up the idea of a two-foot high Noah. And Jeffries' nihilistic vitriol becomes a little more interesting on the few occasions that he turns it against himself. But for all its supposed edginess, this set takes no real risks and is all the more tedious for it.