Jethro is back with yet another stand-up DVD in time for Christmas. He styles himself “the world’s funniest Cornish comedian”; I’d hate to see the competition.
The best I can say about this gig is that it’s mercifully short. Even with some ill-advised interludes – straight pieces to camera where the comic reads some “funny” letters – the whole thing amounts to little more than an hour.

I didn’t laugh a great deal in that time. Jethro’s jokes possess the technique of boxer Audley Harrison: deliveries are telegraphed and they’re punching way below their weight. The difference is Jethro throws a lot of punches; too many in fact. There’s little or no build up to any of the gags, and almost zero anecdote, it’s just sleazy line after relentless sleazy line. In fact, there’s a throwaway line here that’s the crowning one to a classic Billy Connolly sketch named “Ivan the Terrible”; that’s not the kind of competition you want to invoke, however inadvertently.

Even if you like Jethro’s schtick, there’s little truly fresh material here, just lots of similar smut gags about life (and mainly his wife) reworked for the umpteempth time.

If this is what Cornwall has to offer, Mr Ambassador, I’m staying the hell away.

DVD Extras

Slim offering. “Classic Camborne” sees Jethro reclining in an armchair to listen to his own material on an antique radio. It offers a welcome change of pace from the main act, amounting to a lengthy (at least by Jethro’s standards) set-up. But the producers should have simply included the live performance itself, and the pay-off when it comes isn’t worth the wait.

We also have “bloopers”, which consists of Jethro laughing to himself for little discernable reason, and an audio download of the main feature...so you can not listen to it in your car instead of not watching it again at home.