Jimmy Carr says comedy should be taught in schools, and he wants it treated as a skill that can be learned rather than a gift some people are born with. The comedian made the case in a new interview on The High Performance podcast, where he also said drama should sit alongside comedy in classrooms.
The 54-year-old said he does not buy the idea that people are either naturally funny or not. In his view, comedy courses could help create stand-up stars of the future, which is why he thinks schools should take it seriously instead of leaving it as an after-hours interest.
Carr tied that argument to drama teaching as well, saying the idea that drama is not being taught in schools is ridiculous. He said drama should be available as a lesson in every school, and he framed comedy as part of that wider training rather than a separate novelty. That is the heart of the point he made on the podcast: if students can be taught performance, timing and delivery, then they can also be taught how to be funny.
He also pushed the idea into more practical territory. Carr said comedy would not be a free-for-all but something built into the structure of drama lessons, with students learning how to perform, respond and work with an audience. He did not spell out a syllabus, but his comments suggest a model where comedy is folded into existing school drama rather than invented as a brand-new subject from scratch.
The friction in his remarks is that Carr was also talking about behaviour, not just education. In the same interview, he said 16-year-olds drink anyway and argued that they should be allowed to drink in pubs if they go in groups and are responsible. He said teenagers should not be out on their own, but should go in with friends, and he described beer and wine at 16 as fine.
That mix of views gives his comments a sharper edge. On one hand, Carr is calling for schools to treat comedy and drama as serious learning. On the other, he is making a very loose case for teenage drinking in public spaces, saying young people need to learn how to integrate into society and be part of a community. The two arguments do not sit neatly together, but both point to the same instinct: he prefers rules that reflect how people actually behave.
The interview lands now because it comes as part of a podcast series that has already been generating headlines, including last week’s appearance by Richard Hammond, who said he would have liked to keep working with James May and Jeremy Clarkson when The Grand Tour ended. Carr’s comments add a different kind of conversation to the same platform — one about schools, performance and whether comedy belongs in the classroom at all.
What Carr did not offer was a policy roadmap. He made the case, but he did not explain who would teach the classes, how they would fit into the curriculum, or whether comedy would be treated as its own lesson or folded into drama from the start. For now, his argument is clear: comedy is teachable, drama should be in every school, and the next step belongs to the people who decide what students are actually taught.
