Review: Jimeoin’s charisma captures the room in ‘Result!’
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15.04.2019

Review: Jimeoin’s charisma captures the room in ‘Result!’

★★★★

In his usual style, Jimeoin struts onto the stage flexing his eyebrow muscles and well before he’s even cracked a joke, he has the audience in stitches. It takes a rare charisma to elicit uncontainable laughter using just the sheer power of eyebrows, but Jimeoin has it in spades.

After 30-odd years in comedy, Jimeoin knows what works and he sticks to the classics. Result! is not a show that comes with any underlying theme or message attached, it’s an hour of masterfully crafted observational comedy. If there is a message, it’s that life is a lot more enjoyable when mundane everyday routines are viewed as a series of hilarious and intricate moments.

Jimeoin’s skill in rapidly establishing audience rapport comes from a genuine place of warmth and connection. The comedian delivers on what he promises; humble and killer comedy, without an ounce of self-importance. He re-enacts trivialities like forgetting to put the bins out, injecting dramatics that make us all feel a little bit less strange and a little more understood. A lot of the time, he does this without even uttering a word. It’s a miraculous feeling, to be crying from laughter whilst beaming that someone, or actually an entire theatre of people, relates to struggling to put underwear on due to a rogue big toe.

The structure of Result! appears at times to be nothing more than a rough guide for Jimeoin to follow, as he coolly diverges from stories to poke fun at himself or engage with the crowd. It keeps the show feeling organic, the jokes authentic and it never really feels like the stories are pre-rehearsed, even though elements of the performance are honed down to the faintest eyebrow-twitch. For those who’ve seen Jimeoin before, you may recognise a few familiar bits, as at times he likes to lean back on well-worn jokes. It was slightly disappointing to hear reused material after being promised it’d solely be fresh jokes, although in classic Jimeoin style that may well have been subtle sarcasm.

Jimeoin closes the show with a few songs on his faithful guitar, with cheeky lyrics showing off his trademark silliness. Every so often, an especially crass line seems to come out of nowhere with a gear change that knocks the audience right back, in case they’ve gotten a bit too comfortable. Result! reminds us that no one is without their own little set of bizarre idiosyncrasies. It’s the perfect show to bring along a partner, friend or relative who knows you all too well, as you’ll be sneaking across glances that say, “you know that’s me” in between deep belly laughs.