Jack Dee says audiences can hear offensive jokes ‘without calling the cops’ as he defends Jimmy Carr

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Jack Dee has spoken out in defence of fellow comic Jimmy Carr over his widely condemned joke about the Holocaust.

Carr has been heavily criticised for comments made in his 2021 Netflix special His Dark Material after a clip went viral earlier this month.

During the show, Carr joked that people never mention the Romas murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust because “no one ever wants to talk about the positives”.

Following online backlash to the joke, Prime Minister Boris Johnson branded the joke “deeply disturbing” while health secretary Sajid Javid encouraged a boycott of Carr’s work.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Monday (21 February), Dee said that he felt there had been an overreaction to Carr’s comments.

“These things, they come round and they go,” Dee said.

“Jimmy, he set it up as an unacceptable thing to say, this is the thing,” he continued. “A month later someone got hold of it and started to try and make a storm out of very little.”

In the special, Carr introduces the joke with the words: “Strap in everyone, you ready?”

Dee continued: “The bigger question really is about what we do with jokes like that and do we want the state to intervene on what can be said and what can’t be said?

“I think we don’t want that. I think we’re sophisticated and discerning enough [of] an audience to be able to decide for ourselves without having to call the cops.”

Carr is currently touring the UK with his show Terribly Funny. A number of the shows have been attended by protesters.