League Of Jimeoin

Whimsically surreal, inoffensive and utterly endearing, Jimeoin is massive Down Under. Ahem. Raised in Portstewart, the poetically named Jimeon McKeown high-tailed it in the late ‘80s from Northern Ireland to Australia and set about becoming a comedic star in the southern hemisphere.

Oddly under-appreciated back on the British Isles, possibly down to a lack of gigging and concerted exposure, he’s been turning that tide in recent years. Spots on Live At The Apollo and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow have made his presence felt, and he tours Britain and Ireland well into 2013. When we speak, he’s in Warwickshire, on route to a Tyneside gig. A Friday night out in Newcastle? Definitely more miserable than Sydney and possibly slightly dodgy...

“Jesus, I hadn’t thought about that,” he says, only half-joking. “Thanks! But no, the gigging’s been going fantastic. There’s a crowd there. It’s been sold out. I’ve just done a few TV shows and simply off the back of that, I’ve had quite a following. It’s banging your head against a brick wall for years and then you go on a TV show...”
Does he get ever homesick or is it a welcome break from the family?
“Welcome relief! I do that joke in my act – when I’m on tour, I can see why people have photos of their families in work. It’s so they can say, ‘That’s the shit I have to go home to’. It makes doing overtime easier!”
Dates in Dublin, Galway and Belfast are coming in November, the first time Jimeoin will have played these shores since the recession. Does he expect any change in the audience?
“I don’t think those things make an impact. If you’re going out for a night, you leave whatever’s going on in your life at home. People still do that. They’ve got other shit going on much worse than the recession and they really don’t take it out with them. Plus, the things I talk about... I don’t really have an axe to grind. I’m really just up for a laugh, and trying to get that spark lit.”
His is a surreal brand of comedy that isn’t particularly finger-pointing.
“You can turn on the commercial radio every morning and have all those sorts of jokes if you want to. Panel shows cover those things really well but you think, ‘They’re just going over the same topics’. I’m trying to find something different to what other comics are talking about. That for me is just as important as being funny.”
Of course, he originally left a recessionary Ireland in 1988 after his building work dried up.
“That’s exactly right! My job had finished, so I wasn’t really taking much of a leap. I didn’t have work anyway. I went into it with no real other options.”
Given the current state of our construction industry, is he concerned that he may face competition in Oz from immigrant builders chancing their arm at stand-up?
“Haha, definitely. But then, y’know, there could be money taking lead off the roofs of abandoned houses. There should be work in that! Fixing them up or knocking them down. Demolition. You just have to be inventive, don’t you? Be creative. Build a stage and perform! That could be a TV show...”
I trust he’s been seeing plenty more red Irish faces over his part of the world?
“Oh yes, my god! Not only faces, you can hear them from a distance. You’ll be on the street and you just hear a pack of them coming, young boys. Australia is probably what America was in the ‘50s. That place where the migrants go.”
Nearly a quarter of a century after his move, Jimeoin now understandably considers Australia to be his home.
“Yes, I do. I feel that one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life was being from Northern Ireland. Being a Catholic from Northern Ireland meant I didn’t have any nationality. And I really feel nationality is a joke, it really holds people down. If you go, ‘I’m proud to be Irish’? That’s such a redundant statement. What about being Italian? One of the richest countries in the world right now is Australian and the Aboriginal people are all totally snookered. So to be from no place is great, which is what I feel like. And that wouldn’t just be me, that would be a lot of Catholics in Northern Ireland. If you’re not a part of Southern Ireland, you’re not considered Irish, and you’re certainly not from Northern Ireland.”
That sense of disconnect as a youngster had a large impact on his life. It also meant he connected completely with the punk movement. Music, more so than comedy, informs who he is.
“Yeah I was massively into punk. Johnny Rotten was my first comedian. It was 1976, at the height of the Troubles, when ‘God Save The Queen’ came out. We thought that was the funniest thing. People talk about Gandhi, who ever talks about the Sex Pistols? Equally as alternative as Gandhi. A non-aggressive stance.”
Better punchlines too. I’ve always felt Gandhi’s timing and delivery was severely lacking.
“I know a lot of solo musicians that really wanted to be a stand-up. Simply because when people come to your stand-up gig, they listen. Whereas these musicians are in pubs playing acoustic songs and it’s just fodder for conversation. People talking rather than listening. But then, on the music side of it, that was the thing as a kid, wanting to be in a band.”
He’s a content family man but... who does he reckon gets more groupies – comedians or musicians?
“Well...” he ventures cautiously. “I was at a Mighty Boosh show – and I’m not name-dropping! – but I was with David Walliams and he was going, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this!’ And he’s coming from Little Britain fame. So the girl hysteria at The Mighty Boosh was certainly something. I enjoyed the fun of it all, it’s just daft. They’re daft as brushes.”
In general, however, Jimeoin prefers the company of non-comedians. He reckons the funniest stuff comes from his kids.
“Everyone’s funny. Stand-ups can be quite disrespectful to people who aren’t stand-ups. I remember seeing a comic dismissing someone, going, ‘He’s not a stand-up’. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
If his material isn’t stemming from observing the everyman, it’s playing on life’s embarrassments. Though, he reckons, moments of personal mortification are getting rarer these days.
“I think I’ve moved on from when I used to think I was cool a wee bit recently. Which I think is a good thing. I still get embarrassed but now I can take it on the chin. You see it a lot as you get older... that dignity goes!”