Jim Jefferies: Alcoholocaust

Having built his reputation at the festival three or four years ago, and having cracked America in the last couple of years, Jim Jefferies returns to Edinburgh this year as one of the biggest acts in the comedy world. However, one can’t help but be concerned as to the impact such success has had on this great Aussie comic. 

There was a time not very long ago when Jefferies felt truly revelatory; he was unquestionably one of comedy’s most offensive characters, but there was a big-heartedness underpinning much of his work. Quite whether he has succumbed to the ‘Al Murray effect’—whereby a comic develops an audience who take his ironically offensive material at face value so as to effectively destroy the underlying, often liberal, message of his comedy—is unclear. But what is certain is that, with the exception of his final story, Alcoholocaust seems to trade too heavily on lazy, out-of-the-box cheap shots.

Jefferies is still capable of glimpses of the sensitivity of old, the undoubted highlight of the hour being his closing set-piece: a pleasantly long story about taking a childhood friend suffering from a severe form of muscular dystrophy to an Australian brothel. Here Jefferies delights in reeling off what is an unquestionably obscene anecdote, but one that is ultimately fuelled by kindness and good intentions. With this tale, Jeffries is back to his very best; unfortunately though, this represents an all-too-brief flash of the brilliant Aussie comic of old.