Jethro (comedian)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the biblical figure, see Jethro
Jethro is the stage name of Cornish stand-up comedian Jeff Rowe, based in England's West Country. Rowe was born in 1948 in St Buryan, a small village in west Cornwall.
After leaving school, Jethro was apprenticed as a carpenter and then worked as a timber man in a tin mine. However, aged eighteen he joined the St. Just and District Operatic Society and, in addition to his bass voice, locals found he had a talent to make an audience laugh. He began visiting the pubs of Cornwall to sing and joke and was quickly hailed as Cornwall's top comic.
In addition to his appearances on stage and video, Jethro has made a record nine appearances on TV shows hosted by Des O'Connor. His first appearance was on the Des O'Connor Tonight show in 1990, followed by a return for the Christmas Eve show later that year – the first time a comedian had been invited back during one series. He also appeared five times on Jim Davidson’s Generation Game show, twice giving a demonstration of how to make a Cornish pasty. Jethro was also involved in one of the show's longest sequences of out-takes, removed due to his and Davidson's uncontrolled fits of laughter but later shown separately. Davidson has said that he regards Jethro as his favourite storyteller. He has hosted two shows of his own, The Jethro Junction, on HTV and in December 2001 appeared in front of Queen Elizabeth II for the Royal Variety Show.
Jethro lives in Lewdown on the border between Cornwall and Devon and in March 1995 walked the 100 miles or so from Land's End to Lewdown to raise money for the Bristol Cancer Open Scanner Appeal. He gave a show each night at a local venue and in total managed to raise £20,000.
His great loves are his horses which he shows all over the country and with whom he has won most major prizes, including Wembley. He also runs his own venue, Jethro's Club, where he performs each year for charity.
Although widely loved in Cornwall, Jethro has been much criticised for his alleged racism and homophobia. On one instance he referred to gay men as "filthy bastards" [1]. He was one of the directors of troubled channel Sound TV.
[edit] Video releases
Jethro released his first video A Portion of Jethro in 1993. It sold nearly 150,000 copies and in some areas of the UK outsold all other videos on release at the time.
Since then Jethro has released the following videos:
- 1994 : Jethro – From Behind The Bushes – Live
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- Over 250,000 copies sold and stayed in UK top twenty best-selling videos chart for over thirteen weeks.
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- 1995 : What Happened Was
- 1996 : Not For The Vicar
- 1997 : Jethro – The Beast of Bodmin Moor
- 1998 : Go You Ahead Hmmn...!
- 1999 : Jethro Ready For Battle
- 2000 : Jethro Says Bull*cks to Europe
- 2001 : Rule Britannia
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- Over 300,000 copies sold.
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- 2002 : Only For The Barmy
- 2003 : Stark Raving Bonkers
- 2004 : Off the Wall – Live!
- 2005 : Live from Cuckoo Land
- 2006 : From the Madhouse
[edit] Miscellany
- Jethro played Rugby for Penzance and Newlyn Senior First Team for 10 years 1967 to 1977 as prop forward. One of Jethro's teammates at the time was Stack Stevens who went on to become one of English Rugby’s most famous players.
- Jethro has released an earlier video called Befor We Start, but this was only on sale at his shows. The title of this video is taken from JeThRo's trademark opening of his shows "Befor(e) we bloody start"
