Jimmy Carr has said the coronavirus crisis has made him realise how “useless” his skill set is.
The comedian, who has launched a new nightly online quiz show to help keep people entertained during lockdown, said the experience of quarantine has felt very different to what he was expecting.
He told the PA news agency: “It’s an odd one because it’s kind of the opposite of what we were prepared for.
“It feels to me like with every zombie apocalypse movie, I was expecting zombies, not quite a lot of Lego.
Here are all of this week's questions and answers from The Little Tiny Quiz Of The Lockdown https://t.co/IYXFgckLBQ
— Jimmy Carr (@jimmycarr) April 4, 2020
“And always in any movie about an apocalypse there’s always huge social unrest and it’s actually gone entirely the other way, people are being incredibly respectful and wonderful.”
He added: “I think everything is changing so much, it’s going to be a very strange rest of the year.
“Your heart goes out to the medical professionals. It’s extraordinary what’s going on but also I had no idea delivery drivers are the absolute lifeline, people you maybe wouldn’t have thought about a great deal before.
“It’s really very humbling because you realise how useless your skill set is. Oh I do jokes, what use are you in a crisis? Literally f*** all use.”
Carr added he has been particularly buoyed by the public support of Boris Johnson after the Prime Minister was admitted to intensive care with coronavirus.
He said: “I think the Boris thing, I think people are certainly (united) and across party lines as well.
“There’s been a really lovely level of empathy and support and good wishes, which is lovely to see.
“You couldn’t have imagined when Brexit was all happening the nation uniting, and then suddenly everyone’s coming together going ‘I hope this guy is OK.’
Carr described the quiz show as “a bit of fun,” adding: “It’s very difficult to know comedically what to do.
“I think an awful lot of comedy will come from this tangentially, but at the centre of this there is a tragedy of people dying.
“And a medical crisis, a pandemic, the scale of which we haven’t seen for 103 years, its huge and you’re not quite sure when people are going to be ready to laugh, when people are going to want to go out again.
“I mean I’m not sure when we return to anything seeming like a normality, so it’s very odd, so I guess I think I did this quiz more for me than anyone else.
Join me at 6pm everyday for questions, and 8pm for the answers (GMT/UK Time), and… WASH YOUR HANDS. https://t.co/vI1FiF4PVE pic.twitter.com/kTp1kF5KbU
— Jimmy Carr (@jimmycarr) March 30, 2020
“I was in the middle of a tour and you’re out every night and you’re busy and then suddenly -I think a lot of people have experienced this – you come to a juddering halt and you don’t quite know what to do.
“And it is, I think for a lot of people you know, the lockdown certainly is difficult mentally, not to be doing anything.
Jimmy Carr’s Little Tiny Quiz Of The Lockdown is available every night on YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat Discover and sees Carr ask 10 questions at 6pm before he reveals the answers at 8pm.
The show is a co-production between Chambers Productions and Little Dot Studios.