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The Jasper Carrott Trial

Jasper Carrott

BBC One · 1997 · 30 min

A British comic defends his material in a court of law.

Jasper Carrott stands accused of being a comedian. Framed as a literal courtroom trial, the 1997 BBC One project places the Brummie comic in the dock across from a spectacularly humorless Queen’s Counsel. The prosecutor takes the comedy entirely literally, forcing Carrott to defend the mechanics of a joke to a man who considers a punchline about a dog with no nose to be casual animal cruelty.

Originating as a Radio 2 broadcast before jumping to television, the six-part run was filmed at Teddington Studios. Carrott was already a British broadcasting fixture at this point, coming off the sketch show Canned Carrott and the sitcom The Detectives. Between answering to the court, he delivers straightforward observational routines. He details a scuba diving trip to Bali that culminates in an underwater shark-feeding session, and voices his intense frustration over the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest. The event was held in his native Birmingham, yet organizers handed the hosting duties to Ulrika Jonsson and Terry Wogan instead of a local.

The set list

6 bits

  1. Cruel acts of animal husbandry regarding gorillas and moles

    Presented as prosecution evidence against Jasper for animal abuse

  2. Indecency at football matches and mistreatment of religious groups

    Presented as prosecution evidence piling up against him in court

  3. Impersonating a police officer and having a criminal record

    Prosecution's final day of charges recounting illegal acts

  4. Saving the world from Armageddon and charitable acts

    Recalled by Carrott as part of his legal defence

  5. Realizing that he is dying and enduring years of suffering as a comedian

    Played for pity as part of his courtroom defence

  6. Proving that he is funny to save himself from conviction

    Carrott defending 28 years of comedy on the final day of the trial

How it plays

About
crimes against comedy, animals and animal husbandry, football matches, religion, police impersonation, aging and mortality

What the critics said

Nancy Banks-Smith of The Guardian described it as 'a rather strained way of showing Jasper Carrott repeats without actually calling them that', though observing that Carrott was visibly a much better comedian over the years.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: comedy.co.uk, imdb.com, thetvdb.com, brightcomedy.wordpress.com, tvmaze.com, en.wikipedia.org.

Backstory

A six-episode BBC One series framing a retrospective of the past 28 years of Jasper Carrott's stand-up comedy inside a courtroom trial mock-format where Carrott is tried for crimes against comedy.

Details

Released
Runtime
30 min
Where
BBC One
Director
Nic Phillips
Topics
Before
Carrott-U-Like (1994)

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