James Young, no doubt has had a huge influence on comedy here in Northern Ireland. These skits definitely inspired the likes of May McPhetridge, Give My Head Peace, Dry Your Eyes, William Caulfield and others, but how do the skits themselves hold up? For me, it’s hit or miss, some are still damn funny but others seem repetitive and like something from a Pantomime Dame. Clearly a product of its time and I respect the culture impact and the escapism it brought during a dire time here.

by Aqn95

13 comments

  1. The audio recordings of stage performances are excellent, the TV shows, not so much.

  2. I haven’t watch this in a good while but I’d still find it entertaining and still have the DVD and I remember listening to his albums in the early noughties as a kid, some belter tunes like, *The ugliest woman in Ireland* and *I’m the only Catholic on the Linfield team*.

    He could make you cry too, I always remember *wee Davy*.

    I remember well how my granny described him, “*he gave ye many’s a good laugh at a time when there was little to laugh about*”.

  3. A round of bread might have reared you but by Christ, it never reared me

  4. Difficult to comment fairly as his output was long before my time.

    Contrasted against other popular shows of the time (Dick Emery, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson etc). It followed a formula – Adapted and tweaked for a local audience to parody or send up familiar archetypes which resonated or struck more of a chord .. I guess.

    As a time capsule piece, it’s an interesting baseline by which to examine the humour of that time and contrast it with that of the present.

    In some ways – humour here still seems to be rooted in similar things which is either depressing/ comforting or reassuring (depending upon perspective).

    It has quirky whacky moments though (The effin-crackers still seem sort of relevant / funny) .

  5. I’m in my early fifties and remember my parents having two or three vinyl records of his comedy skits, those albums will still be in their attic somewhere, feck all gets thrown out

  6. Ah, I sat down to watch airplane one night and pished myself laughing and the wife just sat and looked at me

    I tried to explain that this was the beginnings of the scary movie styled stupid humour produced by America (I’m not rippin them but they did/do produce the silly stuff) but there was no talking to her.

  7. Fuckin hell. My mother would always go on about this growing up.

  8. Ah, I remember my granny introduced me to Our Jimmy when I was a kid. She had a video of him and I loved it, even though I didn’t really fully understand it. Think I just liked all the funny voices and the weird looking women who sounded like men lol. Ended up buying the exact DVD in OP’s post when I was a bit older, but I lost it ages ago. Would love to watch it again!

  10. Should be mandatory viewing in this country. Nails every corner of society to perfection.. The Effincrackers do it for me. Pure gold. All of it!

  11. Loved this when I was a kid. We had it on vhs, also had a record of Gene Fitzsimmons. Those 2 always made us laugh. Long before PC and all that mattered and jokes were funny.

  12. I used to enjoy mimicking effy o’chondriac as a lad. “here you are you one of them sex mechanics?”

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