Seann Walsh promises Jimmy Carr is ‘personable and lovely’ off-camera

Seann Walsh has addressed what comedy pal Jimmy Carr is really like away from the stage, after joking the controversial comic is often thought of as ‘robotic.’

Jimmy and Seann will both feature in Katherine Ryan’s upcoming new Amazon Prime Video series, titled Backstage With Katherine Ryan. 

The Canadian funny woman will invite a group of comedians to perform and hang out backstage at the iconic Roundhouse theatre in London, where she doesn’t hold back.

While chatting about what viewers can expect from the series, Seann and Katherine revealed viewers would see a different side to 8 Out Of 10 Cats star, Jimmy.

When asked at Thursday’s Amazon Prime Presents event about what comics are really like off-screen, Strictly star Seann shared how different Jimmy is from how he can appear on TV.

He said: ’You get an impression Jimmy is robotic, hopefully through this show you get to see this human side of him. He’s personable and lovely.

‘What I mean, is, I’m using Jimmy to channel that you get to see what comedians are like off stage, he’s the perfect example of that, he normally looks like a robot!’ 

He went on to joke: ‘To me, he looks like the Little Chef on plastic sauces.’

Jimmy was embroiled in controversy in late 2021 after a clip from his Netflix special His Dark Material sparked huge levels of fury. He joked that the ‘thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis’ was a ‘positive’.

During her acceptance speech at the National Comedy Awards, Katherine then thanked Jimmy after she won the prize for outstanding female comedy entertainment performance, which also led some viewers to wonder if she was defending his previous remarks. 

Speaking more during the event about what viewers should take away from comedy, she shared how fans shouldn’t be ‘offended’ by jokes. 

She weighed in: ‘You shouldn’t take offence from comedy… we’re trying to make people happy, trying to make people laugh.

’It’s a language of love and makes everything that’s scary a lot lighter.’

During the series, fans will get a glimpse into the writing process, and Katherine and head writer Geoff Norcott pitch gloves-off roast jokes to each other.

Each episode culminates with the host performing jokes about the very comedians she’s invited onto the show, which sounds pretty savage. 

During Thursday’s press conference, she promised to avoid ‘small talk’ and go straight into ‘the big talk’, meaning no topics would be left off-limits. 

Backstage With Katherine Ryan airs on Amazon Prime Video later this year. 

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