Last night the first-ever Twitter comedy gig took place, with comedians performing their punchlines online. Jimeoin certainly had enough jokes to take part but he was busy gigging in the old school style onstage at the Udderbelly. Besides, the brilliantly subtle visual elements of his act would have been lost in cyberspace.
Jimeoin employs the same have-you-ever-noticed? humour that has made Michael McIntyre a superstar. Yet while McIntyre verbally pummels his fans into submission, this gifted Irishman does it by soft-spoken stealth.
Each instantly recognisable observation is illustrated by the merest eyebrow raise, the slightest forehead tilt. Subject matter takes in a range of quotidian topics, from the hazards of making ice cubes to the difficulties in boiling kettles via the problems of attracting barmen with handfuls of change. Along the way there is an inspired washing machine impersonation and a painfully accurate analysis of rock band clichés.
But this understated yarn-spinner is at his most sublime when tackling the everyday hoops we jump through as humans. For Jimeoin we are naked apes, going through unavoidable behavioural rituals. There is a forensic obsessiveness in the way he unpeels conversational protocol, noting the way we politely wait, lips poised, for another person to finish their anecdote before we leap in with ours.
This is comedy that is so deft and effortless it is hard to mark down. If there is a cavil it is that the fortysomething funnyman has been doing chunks of this set for some time now. If you have never seen him before, this is a five-star show.
For those who have had the pleasure of Jimeoin, they will still get plenty of laughs out of having the pleasure again.
Jimeoin: Eyebrows
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road, Waterloo, SE1 8XX
