Jim Jefferies - Alcoholocaust

There’s a fine line in comedy between pushing the boundaries and just being a bit of an arse; between Bill Hicks and Bernard Manning. In Alcoholocaust, Jefferies weaves drunkenly along that line, and collapses in a heap on the right side. Just about.

Within the first ten minutes, he’s been grossly sexist and racist and delivered a routine about lesbians which borders on being a hate crime. Then it starts to get really bad. Soon, he’s talking about accidentally killing an Iraqi civilian and discussing vaginal lubrication in a language that would make Roy Chubby Brown shudder.

Yet there is an intelligence about Jefferies. At one point he savagely turns on the audience and asks them how they justify laughing at his material. He shows a vulnerable side when he admits to suffering depression (and haemorrhoids) and the show is rounded off with a twenty-minute anecdote about helping a severely disabled friend lose his virginity in a brothel. It’s strangely human and touching, when it’s not massively misogynistic.

Alcoholocaust will make some people nauseous but at a time when shock comedy is commonplace, it’s interesting to watch someone put their heart and soul into seeing how far the boundaries of taste will go.