He's always genuinely interested in the fans who came to speak to him."His personal life is also pleasantly monochrome. Carr and his girlfriend Karoline, a TV executive, live in north London, with a cat called Cookie. They've been together for four years, since before Carr hit the big time. Their relationship has withstood the demands of the spotlight and marriage rumours abound.A rare blip on the personal front came in December, when Carr and his brother Colin took their father Jim to court, alleging harassment in a row over custody of their younger brother, Patrick Headlines came and went, and Carr lost the case. So you'd have to say that he's been managed very well."Estimations of Carr's earning power now put his income at around £1.5 m a year, the sort of salary that might inspire arrogance in some performers. However - both on and off the record - friends and colleagues report that he has remained firmly grounded."Jimmy is really the most courteous guy," says a friend. "Sure, there are people who think he's a touch smarmy, and a year ago perhaps the knives were out for him But he's come through that If you look at him now, he's just a nice, interesting guy.
The Friday Night Project was the same: good, but not brilliant. As was 8 out of 10 Cats."Distraction was in my book a disappointment, but then the Americans have loved it, so who knows? On TV, I'd say he's had about a 50 per cent success rate with what he's done But he's had 100 per cent exposure, and it's worked. After parts in the Royal Variety Performance, and a Peter Cook tribute on BBC2, he'd been snapped up by Channel 4 for a light entertainment show called Your Face or Mine.Since then, the TV roles have come in thick and fast. "He's just done everything that's come his way," says one producer "Not all of them have worked, but by God he's a hard worker Your Face or Mine was good, but not brilliant. By 2003, Carr had been banned from the Perrier on the grounds that he was too famous. I've always had a love of puns and wordplay, and was impressed by a raw young comedian doing it so elegantly."Chambers signed Carr in 1999, and encouraged him to continue with a "fast-track" education on the comedy circuit. In 2001, he appeared at Edinburgh in a show called Rubberneckers, with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
A year later, and he was back with his first solo show, which won an immediate nomination for the Perrier Award.He couldn't follow it up with a win, though. In 1999, Carr was "spotted" by Hannah Chambers, a rising star of comedy management, at a now defunct club called Aquarium in Tottenham Court Road."He had an immediate appeal for me," she says. "We both came from Cambridge, and had the same outlook on life. "I picked the ones I liked, and then sat down and thought, 'How does he come up with that?' I wrote most of mine backwards: find the punchlines first and then work back from there Good set-ups are the tough bits. Punchlines are easy."Colleagues were immediately impressed by his dedication. "Jimmy was and still is the embodiment of pure professional application," says one manager "He's groomed himself, and practises and practises. I remember seeing him on the circuit five or six years ago, and he'd walk on stage with a stopwatch, timing his new gags, and refining them to technical perfection."It didn't take long for the plaudits to start rolling in.