Jethro (comedian)

Jethro
Jethro, after his show at Retford in October 2008
Birth name	Geoffrey Rowe
Born	March 1948 St. Buryan, Cornwall, England
Nationality	British
Years active	1993–present

Jethro is the stage name of British^[1] stand-up comedian Geoffrey J Rowe, based in Lewdown in Devon. Rowe was born in March 1948 in St Buryan, a village in west Cornwall.

After leaving school, Rowe was apprenticed as a carpenter and then worked as a timber man in a tin mine. At the age of eighteen he joined the St. Just and District Operatic Society and, in addition to his bass voice, locals found he had a talent for making an audience laugh. He began visiting the pubs of Cornwall to sing and joke and was quickly hailed as Cornwall’s top comic.

Television

Rowe made his TV debut on the Westward Television programme ‘Treasure Hunt’ playing a pirate co-host.

In addition to his appearances on stage and video, Jethro has made 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 was 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; it involved the story of Hans Brinker, “the boy who put his finger in the dike”, with a pun on dyke. Davidson has said that he regards Jethro as his favourite storyteller, one of his great stories being Train don’t stop Camborne Wednesdays.

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.

Charity work

The comedian lives in Lewdown in west Devon and in March 1995 walked the distance 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 where he raised in total £20,000.

Political views

In March 2014,^[2] Rowe announced he would be supporting UKIP at the next UK general election. He once stood as an anti-EU independent candidate.^[3]

Shooting

Rowe is a skilled marksman. He often competes in Down-The-Line, a form of clay pigeon shooting competition at B class standard. He has been mentioned numerous times in the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association’s Pull! magazine as one of Cornwall’s most prominent shooters.

Horse breeding

Whilst not performing comedy Rowe shows his horses all over the country. They have won most major prizes, including at Wembley Arena. He has bred show horses and racehorses and is a well known judge. He also used to run his own venue, Jethro’s Club, where he performed each year for charity. He was one of the directors of channel Sound TV and performed at Somerset County Cricket Club at the benefit dinner of England batsman Marcus Trescothick.

Rugby

In earlier times Rowe played over 100 games for the Penzance Pirates rugby team, now better known as the Cornish Pirates. His rugby interest was nurtured at Cape Cornwall School under the guidance of Derek Small. He played in St Just’s first ever match back in 1967 and then in 1970 had his first spell with the Pirates. Rowe played his 100th match for the Pirates in 1974-75.^[4]

Rowe also played for Newlyn Senior first team for 10 years from 1967 to 1977 as prop forward. One of his teammates at the time was Brian 'Stack' Stevens who went on to become one of English rugby’s most famous players. He also played for Wadebridge Camels, captaining the highly successful and competitive ‘Commandos’ second XV.

Stand-up VHS and DVD releases

• A Portion Of Jethro - Slightly Naughty (1993)
• From Behind The Bushes - Live (1994)
• Live - What Happened Was… (23 October 1995)
• Not For The Vicar (1996)
• The Beast of Bodmin Moor (27 October 1997)
• Go You Ahead Hmmn…! (2 November 1998)
• Ready For Battle (1999)
• Jethro Says Bull’cks to Europe (6 November 2000)
• Rule Britannia (5 November 2001)
• Only For The Barmy (4 November 2002)
• Stark Raving Bonkers! - Live Stand Up (3 November 2003)
• Off The Wall (1 November 2004)
• Jethro In Cuckoo Land (31 October 2005)
• Live From The Madhouse (30 October 2006)
• Live At Jethro’s - Back Of Beyond (29 October 2007)
• A Giant Portion Of Jethro (27 October 2008)
• Too Late to Grow Up (2 November 2009)
• I Told It My Way - Live on Tour (22 November 2010)
• The Cornish Ambassador (14 November 2011)
• Jethro 40 Years a Joker (16 November 2015)

References

External links

• Official website