ON STAGE
What: Jim Jefferies
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, 1925 Blanshard St.
When: Saturday, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $39.50-$59.50 at selectyourtickets.com, by phone at 250-220-7777, or in person at the arena box office.
Australian comic Jim Jefferies got into comedy with a specific goal in mind: to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
“I don’t believe in ever apologizing for a joke,” Jefferies said recently, during an interview by Larry King. “I think that’s the wrong way to go.”
His desire to shock and awe has taken Jefferies from the fringes of the comedy world to centre stage in recent months. This summer, he was given his own news show on Comedy Central, which he uses as a weekly vehicle to espouse his skewed (and alcohol-skewered) views to the world.
“I have two tequilas before each show,” Jefferies said during an interview on The Dan Patrick Show. “I’m not drunk, but I’m a little buzzed as I’m telling you about North Korea.”
Recent topics on The Jim Jefferies Show, which are presented in a way that is not dissimilar to The Daily Show, include several pertaining to Donald Trump, such as the U.S president’s response to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and his relationship with Russian officials. Jefferies has been making a killing off Trump during his half-hour series, which has steadily established an audience and has been renewed for a second season in 2018.
The show’s success has translated into the Unusual Punishment Tour. The run of stand-up dates for Jefferies includes a Saturday night stop at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria, where the comic gave a controversial performance on June 17, 2016.
During that appearance, his brand of vulgarity (which includes liberal use of the C-word) caused dozens of fans to hit the exits early. Jefferies has not toned down his act now that he’s on television, so attendees should expect a similar amount of material when he performs his fourth Victoria show in three years this weekend.
“The whole thing has always been being able to say bad things to people and them knowing that I’m joking,” Jefferies told the Phoenix New Times recently. “In the current climate, that is getting harder and harder. It’s getting harder for your jokes not to be seen at face value.”
Jefferies chooses to limit interviews with newspapers on account of how he comes across in print. To be sure, a large part of his appeal is intrinsically tied to his Australian persona. On his show, Jefferies leans back in a chair, with a half-cocked smile on his face, delivering lines (“Guy Fieri has nine restaurants — that’s 10 more than we need”) with an Aussie tenor that always elicits a cascade of laughs.
The longtime Los Angeles resident, who has a son with girlfriend Kate Luyben, a Calgary native, has been vocal in his opposition to guns, a stance that provided him with one of his most famous monologues, and one of his most on-point observations: “Your First Amendment means that I can say the Second Amendment sucks.”
Jefferies’s 16-minute rant on gun control, and the lack of it in the U.S., attacked the issue during his 2014 Netflix special. He did so with his usual candour, calling out parties on both sides of the issue. That’s typical of Jefferies, who prides himself on being an equal-opportunity offender.
“I don’t want anyone feeling so upset that they have to leave,” Jefferies told Salon, when questioned about his divisive act. “What I like is if someone’s in a group of six, and one person is really, really upset, and the rest of the group is still with me. They’re having that awkward night afterward. I always get that letter: ‘I brought this person along, they f---ing hated you, but I had a great time.’ ”
Now that he’s settled into a long-term relationship — and no longer doing drugs “like a champion,” as he famously quipped during his Netflix special — Jefferies has shifted his stand-up focus. He also dropped bits of his routine that some critics have labelled misogynistic. “My act is what you’d call an acquired taste,” he said during an episode of The Jim Jefferies Show. “But I’ve always believed that my audience understood that those are jokes and don’t represent my actual beliefs.”
He is still angry, however, and has become an expert at mining the saltier side of his personality for laughs.
“The good parts of your life and the bits where you’re not angry are not funny,” Jefferies told GQ.
“Nobody wants to hear a joke about a good day. Every sitcom you watch is an episode of someone having a problem, how are they going to fix that problem? That’s why we’re having a problem now with social media where everyone’s just showing their best day. Stand-up comedy is actually the opposite of that.”